Dr. James Ransome, CISSP, CISM, is the Senior Director of Product Security and responsible for all aspects of McAfee’s Product Security Program to include the Product Security Incident Response Team (PSIRT), a corporate-wide initiative that supports the delivery of secure software products to customers. He is a recognized security practitioner, author, and speaker with a current focus software security. His career is marked by leadership positions in the private and public industries, having served in three chief information security officer (CISO) and four chief security officer (CSO) roles at Applied Materials, Autodesk, Qwest Communications, Pilot Network Services, Exodus Communications, Exodus Communications -Cable and Wireless Company, and Cisco. Ransome was also the vice president of Integrated Security at CH2M HILL and senior vice president of Commercial Managed and Professional Security Services at SecureInfo Inc. While at Exodus Communications and Cable and Wireless, he managed Internet and physical security for hundreds of thousands of users within the world's largest commercial hosting environment, serving more than 4,500 customers from 42 data centers.
Ransome has 23 years of government service, which includes ten years as a computer scientist and geospatial imagery intelligence analyst, weapons of mass destruction threat credibility assessment analyst and senior NEST key leader for DOE/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, three years as US Special Agent for the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS), and is a retired Naval Intelligence Officer (Commander) and former U.S. Marine Corps Weapons Platoon Sergeant and Intelligence Specialist with twenty-three years combined active and reserve service.
He holds a Ph.D. in Information Systems and developed/tested a security model, architecture, and provided leading practices for converged wired-wireless network security for his doctoral dissertation as part of a NSA/DHS Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education program. He is a member of Upsilon Pi Epsilon, the International Honor Society for the Computing and Information Disciplines, a Certified Information Security Manager (CISM), a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), and a Ponemon Institute Distinguished Fellow.
Ransome recently authored his 10th information security book “Core Software Security: Security at the Source.” He also developed the initial wireless, network architecture, SCADA, Cryptography, and VoIP security leading practices for the Federal Communications Commission Network Reliability and Interoperability Council Focus Group on Cybersecurity – Homeland Defense.