News
M3AAWG Tackles Emerging Security Issues With Industry Collaboration; Also Announces 2014 Leadership
April 2014 by Marc Jacob
Tackling security concerns with hosting and cloud storage, pervasive monitoring, identity management, and telephony, the Messaging, Malware and Mobile Anti-Abuse Working Group has announced the formation of four new collaborative special interest groups along with its organizational leadership for 2014. The new SIGs provide a trusted venue for industry participation on critical issues while M3AAWG continues to support the ongoing work in its core security tracts.
Protecting end-users has become increasingly complex, requiring broad industry cooperation across multiple disciplines. The new M3AAWG Hosting SIG is also working with the i2Coalition and other industry partners to develop best practices. The SIG will address issues with cloud storage security, identifying and removing illegitimate accounts, and protecting hosting servers against DDoS and other attacks. The new M3AAWG Pervasive Monitoring SIG was formed in response to members’ concerns related to recent disclosures about extensive governmental monitoring of the Internet and how the consequent reaction by the technical community may impact, or even reduce, the ability to mitigate online abuse.
Earlier this year, the M3AAWG Voice and Telephony Abuse SIG hosted 90 technical experts, academic researchers, public policy advisors and representatives from government and law enforcement at a two-day workshop addressing robocalls and other voice abuse problems. A second VTA SIG workshop on June 18-19 in Montreal is also open to non-members, and European industry and government representatives will attend a briefing and cooperative data exchange at the M3AAWG 31st General Meeting in Brussels, Belgium, on June 9-12.
"Sharing timely information about attack vectors, vulnerabilities and proven security methods is crucial to protecting the Internet and providing end-users an accessible and safe online experience. The collaborative work that will come out of these new SIGs will help fix urgent security issues and will augment the ongoing projects in our other M3AAWG committees to define the latest anti-abuse techniques," said Chris Roosenraad, who is with Time Warner Cable and serving his third term as M3AAWG chairman.
2014 Leadership Look to Share Best Practices and Training
M3AAWG also announced the other 2014 Board officers serving with M3AAWG Chairman Roosenraad as M3AAWG co-vice chairmen Michael Adkins, Alex Bobotek of AT&T and Jerome Cudelou of Orange. Sam Silberman of Constant Contact is treasurer and Jerry Upton continues as M3AAWG executive director.
The committees are supported in their work by M3AAWG Senior Technical Advisors, who are recognized industry experts with in depth knowledge in relevant fields. The current advisors were all reappointed for 2014 and include Richard Clayton, Ph.D.; Dave Crocker; David Dagon, Ph.D.; John Levine, Ph.D.; April Lorenzen; and Joe St Sauver, Ph.D.
M3AAWG committees develop the organization’s best practices and other work that fight abuse and malware. The 2014 committee chairs are:
Academic Committee Co-Chairs Manos Antonakakis, Ph.D., Georgia Tech; and M3AAWG advisor Joe St Sauver, Ph.D.
Awards Committee Co-Chairs Tami Forman, Return Path; and Neil Schwartzman, CAUCE
Brand SIG Co-Chairs Mike Hammer, AG Interactive; and Franck Martin, LinkedIn
Collaboration Committee Co-Chairs Christine Borgia, Return Path; Angela Knox, Cloudmark; and Sara Roper, CenturyLink
Hosting SIG Co-Chairs M3AAWG Chairman Emeritus Michael O’Reirdan, Comcast; and Schwartzman
Identity Management SIG Co-Chairs O’Reirdan and St Sauver
M3AAWG Open Round Tables co-chairs Melinda Plemel, Return Path; and Jordan Rosenwald, Comcast
Pervasive Monitoring SIG with co-chairs O’Reirdan and M3AAWG co-vice chairman Adkins
Program Committee Co-Chairs Kurt Andersen, LinkedIn; Dennis Dayman, Oracle/Eloqua; and Len Shneyder
Public Policy Committee Co-Chairs Frank Ackermann; Chris Boyer, AT&T; and Rudy Brioche, Comcast
Senders Committee Co-Chairs Andrew Barrett, iContact, a Vocus company; and Tara Natanson, Constant Contact
Technical Committee Co-Chairs Henry Stern, Farsight Security; and Jamie Tomasello, CloudFlare. For specific work areas, Chris Barton, and Severin Walker, Comcast, are co-chairs for messaging; Paul Ferguson, Internet Identity; and Maxim Weinstein, Sophos, are co-chairs for malware; M3AAWG Co-Chairman Bobotek and Antti Tikkanen, F-Secure, are mobile co-chairs
Training Committee Co-Chairs Sam Masiello, Groupon; Vincent Schonau, Abusix; and Autum Tyr-Salvia, Marketo
Voice and Telephony Abuse SIG Co-Chairs Bobotek and Mustaque Ahamad, Ph.D., Georgia Tech
Beyond driving discussions on relevant issues, the committee chairs also help shape the organization’s three meetings each year. The M3AAWG 31st General Meeting in Brussels will be a multi-track event with a full day of training. Industry experts will lead over 30 sessions on mobile security, technical discussions on pervasive monitoring, international public policy and other anti-abuse areas.
