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A Miraculous Woman 

Rebecca Gurley Bace or "Becky" was a security technology expert, author, and entrepreneur. Named by Information Security Magazine as one of the five most influential women in security 1993 and in 2007 named one of the ten most influential people in information security by Information Security Magazine. She is credited with building a national community that connected early network security researchers both academic, including early work with COAST (now CERIAS) at Purdue and the Security Lab at University of California, Davis, with government organizations like the Air Force Information Warfare Center and the FBI's first Computer Crime Squad. 

Ms. Bace was an internationally recognized expert in intrusion detection, cyber security, and technology transfer and a noted author on a wide range of topics including:

• Computer Crime: A Crimefigters Handbook (O'Reilly 1995)
• Intrusion Detection (Macmillan Technical Publishing, 2000)
• A Guide to Forensic Testimony: The Army and Practice of Presenting Testimony as an Expert Witness (Addison Wesley, 2002)
• The Intrusion Detection Special Publication for the National Institute of Standards and Technology,
• The chapter on intrusion detection and vulnerability assessment in the Computer Security Handbook Fourth and Fifth Editions (2002)

Bace was the Chief Strategist of the Center for Forensics, IT, and Security in the School of Computing, University of South Alabama. She was also President/CEO of Infidel, Inc. a strategic consulting practice. Before joining University life she was VP of Security Practice for InQTel and a Venture Consultant for Trident Capital where she helped identify and develop industry-leading portfolios of security startups. 

Ms Bace's recognized leadership role in the security world built upon her information security expertise developed during her thirteen years in government service, the first twelve as a senior electronics engineer for the National Security Agency. She led the Computer Misuse and Anomaly Detection (CMAD) Research program from 1989 through 1995. In this role, she had the privilege of working with many of the pioneers of Computer Security, and she remained an activist in the Computer Security History field, as an adviser to the NSF-funded Computer Security History Project at the Babbage Institute. Ms. Bace received the National Security Agency's Distinguished Leadership Award in recognition of her work building the CMAD community.

Since her passing, Rebecca Bace has been selected for the Cyber Security Hall of Fame.

Bace held a Master of Engineering Science (Electrical, with concentration in Digital Systems) from Loyola College.   

An Article by Becky 

In one of her final papers she talks about cyber security needing a change, needing a wake-up call, and lays out a strategy for fixing problems.

Time for a 'Ralph Nader' Moment 

Here at BCI we want to continue Rebecca Bace's work and are endeavoring to develop, nurture, and spread the technologies, processes, education, or policies that can change the cybersecurity landscape.