Mr. Thomas Rude, CISSP, is an Information Security Consultant with over 5 years of hands-on technical experience and research within the realm of Information Security. He has a thorough understanding of the technical underpinnings and the ability to relate that information in an easily understandable and more accessible manner.

True to his consulting background, Mr. Rude has built his knowledge upon years of hands-on consulting work in various areas of the security world, designing and implementing such security technologies ranging from firewalls and virtual private networks to hardened servers, and performing security assessments that include vulnerability assessments of systems and networks and review of corporate security policies. Special focus areas include; system hardening, incident response and data forensics, and security assessments. Mr. Rude has taught technical programs focusing on hacking and exploiting systems, steganography, data forensics, and erasing digital tracks. He has presented at various Information Security and Forensics conferences and training programs, including; Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, Annual GMU Computer Crime Symposium, and the Annual TechnoSecurity Conference. Most recently Mr. Rude has focused his teaching efforts on assisting law enforcement and corporations by developing and writing a curriculum, "Linux and Next Generation Data Forensics", that instructs them on how to leverage Linux as their platform for performing investigations and forensic analysis.

Mr. Rude spends much of his time performing research, writing, and testing security and forensic software programs for functionality, accuracy, and weakness. Some of his work may be found on the Internet at his personal site, www.crazytrain.com. In addition, many of his articles have been linked and republished at security resource sites throughout the Internet. His most recent writings include the User Guide for SMART, a data forensic program developed by ASR Data Acquisition & Analysis, LLC, and contributions to the "Red Hat Linux 8.0 Security Guide" book published by Red Hat, Inc in 2002.

Mr. Rude has attained his Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) certification in addition to being an ISO 9000 Certified Internal Auditor. Mr. Rude is active in his community and is currently serving as the President for the Atlanta Chapter High Technology Crime Investigation Association (HTCIA) for 2003. He is also a member of the Atlanta Metropolitan Crime Commission, a group comprised of law enforcement and corporate security personnel working together to help prevent and solve technology crime in the greater Atlanta area.