AISA gets new chief

The national director of the Australian Information Security Association (AISA) Keith Price has resigned to be replaced with membership director Benn Dullard.

Price said he stepped down at the AISA annual general meeeting last week to make room for "new blood" and to focus on his information security consultancy Black Swan Consulting.

Dullard, also technical director of anti-fraud company Eunexus and former AISA Sydney chapter head, has been involved in the association for more than four years.

Price

Sydney chapter president and Deloitte risk services director Arno Brok replaced Dullard but there were no other changes to the AISA structure.

Price said the highlight of his five years at the non-profit association and two years as president was the recent national conference held in Sydney.

"The national conference was the most memorable. It was put together by volunteers, was free to members and worked like clockwork, all within budget," Price said.

AISA membership has grown from some 500 members in 2007 to more than 1000 last year. The national conference held November 9 attracted some 300 new members to the association and additional membership renewals.

Price will spend the next 12 months driving new business for Black Swan Consulting with partner Peter Robinson.

He described the business as having a "short term and sharp focus on high value assessments" for infosec governance and architecture projects.

"Instead of going through a recruiter, or one of the big four ... and having a bum on a seat with high and low productivity for six months, we come in for a shorter time and focus on outcomes," Price said.

Dullard

Price and Robinson have similar industry heritage: they met during a 2003 infosec project at Westpac where Price worked within the bank's infosec governance team and Robinson at IBM.

Robinson previously worked within the Commonwealth Bank's infosec team while Price help create Telstra's infosec consultancy business and also redesigned internal networks for an Australian energy provider.

Both have a focus on rebuilding and hardening internal enterprise networks.

"I had worked with some really smart guys [at Westpac and Telstra]. I had an exponential jump in knowledge and experience - that's where a lot of my thinking comes from," Price said.

Price and Robinson attend consulting jobs personally, many of them within enterprises and government agencies, and have arrangements with some external providers. They are looking to hire a third consultant next year.

"It's amazing really when you think about it, that the mentality of infosec hasn't changed in a decade. We're still running large flat networks," Price said.