Rebecca Gurley Bace is an internationally recognized expert in network security and intrusion detection. She is Chief Strategist for the Center for Forensics, Information Technology and Security (CFITS) at the University of South Alabama, and President/CEO of Infidel, Inc. She has extensive experience in both cyber security research and venture capital arenas. Before joining the University of South Alabama, Bace served as Technical VP of the Cyber Security Practice for In-Q-Tel, the investment arm of the U.S. Intelligence Community.

In the decade prior to joining IQT, Ms. Bace was Venture Consultant for Trident Capital, where she served as resident cyber security technologist. She worked with the firm to build an industry-leading portfolio of security startups, including Qualys, Sygate, Tablus, iRobot, Arxan, HyTrust, and Thor Technologies.

Ms. Bace’s role in the cyber security world builds upon information security expertise developed during her years in government service. As leader and program director of CMAD Research for the National Security Agency , she sponsored and supervised much of the early research in Intrusion Detection, building a community spanning academic, private, and federal entities. She subsequently served as deputy security officer for the Los Alamos National Laboratories, then formed Infidel, Inc in the late 1990s. Ms. Bace is also a noted author on topics in tech transfer, intrusion detection, network security, and forensic testimony, with credits including critically acclaimed textbooks, a NIST Special Publication (SP 800-31) and the chapters on Intrusion Detection and Vulnerability Assessment for the practice handbook for the Information Security profession. As an advisor to several state and national level programs (including CyberMaryland, I-Corp, and Accelerate,) Bace remains active in the national technology transfer community; she also serves as the Cyber Security lead for the ACM Case Study Working Group, which publishes in CACM and ACM Queue.

In 2007, Information Security Magazine named Rebecca Gurley Bace one of the ten most influential people in the information security industry today; in 2005 she was named one of the five leading women in Information Security.