The Leahy Center has a new Professional Services Director: Jason Ehlers, a Champlain College graduate who’s worked both in and out of the college in cybersecurity and education. We sat down with him to talk about his plans for the future.
Editor: Hey! How are you doing? Tell us a little about yourself!
Ehlers: Hello, I’m doing well, thank you! My name is Jason Ehlers, I’m 43 years old, and I’ve worked in the Burlington area for a few years now. I live in a log cabin up in north central Vermont along with my wife, three cats, and five ducks, and I have family all over the world, from Ohio to Japan. I’ve been working in IT and cybersecurity fields for over 20 years now, both back in San Diego, California, and up here in Vermont.
You talked about how you’ve been doing cybersecurity and IT related work for a while now, can you tell us a little bit more about that?
I started messing with IT and electronics when I was a kid in the 80’s. I got my first IT job in ‘97 as a Residential Network Technician (RNT) at Bowling Green State University. By ‘98, I was the supervisor of all RNT’s (17 of them) at 20 years old. I joined the Marine Corps in the Communications Security Equipment (ComSec) field, where I was a technician, supervisor of technicians, information assurance (IA) leader, and everything else under the sun for six years. By my departure, I was the Operations manager for the most important technical help desk in the Marine Corps.
After the USMC, I pursued my degrees at Champlain, working in the Leahy Center. I was also a Senior Analyst at Kivu Consulting, where I had many hats. I built and co-led a variety of different teams at Kivu and was the senior threat analyst for a Managed Security Services line.
What were some of your experiences with Champlain College before now?
Quite extensive! I got involved with the college back in 2013, when I was still living in California, thanks to Jonathan Rajewski and Dave Gerns at the Champlain College Military and Veteran’s Service Office. Studying online, I was working as close as I could with the Leahy Center from my position. I ended up interning with both the Military and Veteran Service Office and the Leahy Center for about a year, where I built professional relationships with Champlain’s academic advisors, finance team, Career Collaborative, Military and Veteran Service Office, in-house faculty, and CPS.
Can you share with me what it was like working in the Leahy Center Where have those skills gotten you over these past few years?
I loved it! It catapulted my opportunities in the civilian cybersecurity and digital forensics fields. I learned a lot from those around me, as there are so many smart students that participate in Leahy Center projects. I had the benefit of having a lot of related experience before I got to the Leahy Center. Of course, the relationships you build at any opportunity are always important. I also liked the technical exposure and observing differing and fresh perspectives on things.
Looking a bit inwards, how would you describe the working environment here at the Leahy Center? How does that factor into your future plans?
I’m an operations manager at heart. I love the culture that draws people here, and I will continue to build that culture. This should be the country’s best experiential learning experience in our field of study. If I go sooner than planned, it will be to teach at Champlain full time.
Are there any projects that you are currently involved with/starting that you would like to talk about?
I’ve finished two weeks of absorbing data about what we do and how we do it. Currently, I’m digging into what our professional services are so that we can confidently offer them to local nonprofits, schools, and government entities. I want current students, future students, and outside organizations to seek out the Leahy Center for professional services. This requires incorporating more academic disciplines into our projects and operations. If I can achieve a part of that, it’s a win.
To wrap it up, is there anything that you would like to add?
Thank you for taking the time to see who I am and what I’m up to. I hope my energy influences others to pursue related fields or get involved with the Leahy Center. Stay tuned and see where we go from here!
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The post Interview with New Professional Services Director Jason Ehlers appeared first on The Leahy Center for Digital Forensics & Cybersecurity.
Changes to the Network Automation Scanner
Over the past few weeks, we have had a lot of trial and error, but with every fallback, we would take a greater leap forward. We tried to have the scanner files upload to Dropbox. But we realized that the scanner wouldn’t have internet access on the Pi network. This led us to add code to copy the files to a flash drive and then delete them from the Pi. To know that the scan finished and the results had copied to a flash drive, we added a sound cue. Later, a flash from the power LED was also added in case the user does not have headphones plugged in.
With the hope of having a more in-depth scan of the web servers, we added a Nikto scan. We also added code to record the date and time of the scan. We can now capture how long the scan takes and what needs to change.
Testing
After finalizing the script, we started testing it on a network of Raspberry Pis. By running services on the Pis, we are better able to determine the effectiveness of our network scanner. Keeping meticulous notes, we noted the time that it took for the scan to finish. We also noted the services on the pi that were being scanned. And we made comments based on things we noticed during the scan
Troubleshooting
During the first official test, we noticed that the USB stick was not plugged in. This means the files were not copied to the USB, but they were being deleted from the Pi. To eliminate the chance of this happening again, we added an error detection that prevents the deletion of the files if a USB is not detected. We also simplified things by putting all the scan files into a tar file and compressing it by using gzip. It also has a configuration window for turning Dropbox and email copying on or off.
Conclusion
Over the course of the semester, our scanner has changed greatly. We have added new features such as troubleshooting to increase the effectiveness of our scanner. We can also keep track of how long a single scan takes. By adding new features to our scanner we can increase its ability to test the security of computer networks.
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