About Us

The Information Technology (IT) Security Office provides technology tools and services, education, awareness, and guidance necessary for all users to work towards a safe and secure information technology environment for teaching and learning, research, outreach and the conduct of university business. The office is also responsible for the Identity Management Services (IMS) office and the IT Security Lab.

Wayne Donald IT Security Officer wdonald@vt.edu 231-7694

Wayne Donald has been employed at Virginia Tech since 1969 and held several positions within the technology organization.  He is currently the Information Technology Security Officer, a position he has held since 1998 to promote security issues throughout the Virginia Tech user community.   He is responsible for areas of security awareness, user education, technology tools for security-related issues (including a departmental security review program started in 2006), a university-wide risk analysis program, and business recovery plans for Information Technology.  In addition, the Technology Security Lab and the Information Resource Management department report to the Security Office.  Wayne has been active in several professional organizations including VA SCAN, EDUCAUSE, CUMREC, and ACCS.  He has presented papers, seminars, classes, and has been featured in national publications for his security-related role at VT.

Randy Marchany Director of IT Security Lab randy.marchany@vt.edu 231-9523

Randy Marchany has been involved in the computer industry since 1972. He is currently the director of the VA Tech IT Security Lab, a component of the university's IT Security Office. He is a co-author of the FBI/SANS Institute's "Top 10/20 Internet Security Vulnerabilities" document that has become a standard for most computer security and auditing software. He is the co-author of the "Responding to Distributed Denial of Service Attacks" document that was prepared at the request of the White House in response to the DDOS attacks of 2000. He is a coauthor of the Center for Internet Security's series of Security Benchmark documents for Solaris, AIX and Windows2000. These benchmarks are available for free and represent the first successful attempt to create a set of consensus documents with detailed steps for implementing system security. He was a member of the White House Partnership for Critical Infrastructure Security working group that developed a Consensus Roadmap for responding to the recent series of DDOS Internet Attacks. He was a recipient of the SANS Institute's Security Technology Leadership Award for 2000. He was a recipient of the VA Governor's Technology Silver Award in 2003. He was part of the team that won the EDUCAUSE Excellence in Information Technology Solutions in 2005. He is a co-holder of a patent for battery based intrusion detection system that was the product of research conducted in the VA Tech IT Security Lab.

Nicolas Pachis IT Specialist npachis@vt.edu 231-0652

Nicolas Pachis has been working for Virginia Tech for more than four years.  He has been working for the IT Security Office since November 2006.  Prior to that, he worked with Online Course Systems in support of Blackboard and Scholar.  Currently, Nicolas is involved in the security awareness initiatives, policy planning, web site design and content management within the IT Security Office.  Nicolas holds the SANS/GIAC - GCIH Gold certification, GIAC STAR Payment Card Industry certificate, and graduated from Virginia Tech in 2003 with a degree in History.

Philip Kobezak IT Specialist pdk@vt.edu 231-2441

Philip Kobezak has been working for central IT for more than seven years. He has been working for the IT Security Office since January 2006. Prior to that, he conducted performance and capacity planning for NIS Systems Support while also assisting the Security Lab with testing. Currently, Philip performs security reviews for departments and responds to incidents. Philip holds the SANS / GIAC certifications GSEC, GCIH, and GCFA. Philip is also a senior (part-time student) in computer engineering.

Student Interns

Aaron Kroll Student Intern krolla@vt.edu

Aaron is currently in the undergraduate Business Management/Geosciences program at Virginia Tech. This is Aaron's first year with the IT Security office in which he is helping with web site design, security awareness, and risk analysis.

John Paul Dunning Student Intern jpvt40@vt.edu

I recently completed undergraduate in Computer Science from Virginia Tech. I am in the lab continuing research in mobile device intrusion detection and developing questions about code security for SANS. I have been in the lab a since summer 2006

Lee Clagett Student Intern lclagett@vt.edu

Lee has been a part of the IT Security Lab since June 2006 doing security research, and work on implementing a front end for IDS tools. Lee graduated from Virginia Tech in Spring 2007 with a degree in Computer Science and is attending Graduate school at Virginia Tech for Computer Science & Applications

Security Office Organizational Chart