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Georgios Magklaras

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Name
  
Georgios Magklaras


Georgios Magklaras Georgios Magklaras gmagklaras Twitter

Georgios (George) V. Magklaras (born in Agrinio, Greece) (Greek: Γεώργιος Μαγκλάρας) is a computer scientist working as a Senior Computer Systems Engineer at the University of Oslo, in Norway. He is an information security researcher and developed methods in the field of insider IT misuse detection and prediction. He is also an active systems administrator information security consultant and Information Technology practitioner working with High Performance Computing, especially in the fields of Life Sciences and Bioinformatics applications. He has been a strong advocate of Linux, Open Source tools and the Perl programming language and has given a series of lectures internationally in the fields of Intrusion Detection Systems, Digital Forensics, Bioinformatics, Computer Programming and Systems Administration.

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Education

Magklaras gained his BSc (Hons) in Computer Systems and Networks from the University of Plymouth, UK, where he graduated in 2000. He was then awarded an EPSRC scholarship to start the study of an MPhil (2005) degree in the area of Information Security, under the Faculty of Technology at the University of Plymouth, UK. Under the supervision of Prof. Steven M. Furnell at the School of Computing, University of Plymouth, UK], he completed his PhD study in the same area (Information Security) in 2012.

Research and Career

His research was initially concerned with ways to classify computer security incident management responses. However, his attention was drawn to the problem of misuse detection. Magklaras developed one of the first methods to systematize the misuse detection and misuse prediction techniques. He captured the problem of insider IT misuse and set the theoretical and practical foundations for a generic architecture that facilitates misuse detection and misuse prediction. As part of this work, he wrote the LUARM tool which is one of the few forensic enabled computer data logging engines that target misuse detection. LUARM has already been used with success on a number of notable cases detecting insiders and external computer intrusion attempts, however its main usefulness as a research prototype is to create data sets for researchers to further understand the nature of insider threats.

Magklaras also pioneered the use of Domain Specific Languages in the field of misuse detection and prediction, in order to strengthen the data mining capabilities of information security researchers. His work on the Insider Threat Prediction and Specification Language (ITPSL) forms the only known XML based DSL language that attempts to produce semantics capable of combining techniques that mine and interpret misuse data with tags that provide the likelihood of a misuse threat occurring.

Magklaras has also been involved in the construction of deep packet inspection infrastructures for several hardware/software vendors, although this work has not been presented on the public domain. However, he has expressed critical views on how the mass media are covering the issue of electronic surveillance and has consulted for the Free Software Foundation on that matter. He has been an infrequent contributor of Black Hat Briefings and has participated (as part of a team) in various computer hacking challenges, including that of the GCHQ challenge in 2011.

In the field of bioinformatics, Magklaras has contributed to the study of biological sequence databases and protein-to-protein interactions by mainly engineering software (algorithms, programming) to address these tasks. His is also known for his technical work in architectures that address the data storage volume and processing requirements of Next Generation Sequencing machines.

Prior working at the University of Oslo, Magklaras has worked in various technical and scientific positions for a number of companies and organizations, including those of Sequent Computer Systems, Boeing and IBM UK. He has held a number of professional affiliations, including those of an IEEE affiliate member, USENIX, SAGE/LOPSA and Red Hat Certified Engineer. He has held the position of Secretary (since 2005) and Chair (since 2010) of the Technical Management Project Committee of the EMBnet organization.

References

Georgios Magklaras Wikipedia