About the Technical Reviewers

Greg Abelar has been an employee of Cisco Systems since December 1996. He was an original member of the Cisco Technical Assistance Security team, helping to hire and train many of the engineers. He has held various positions in both the Security Architecture and Security Technical Marketing Engineering teams at Cisco. Greg is the primary founder and project manager of the Cisco written CCIE Security exam.

Gary Halleen has been an employee of Cisco Systems, Inc., since 2000, and is a consulting systems engineer for security products. Gary works closely with Cisco security product teams and has presented at Networkers and other security conferences. Before he worked at Cisco, Gary held security positions at a college and an Internet service provider. Working with local law enforcement, Gary helped to prosecute the first successful computer crimes conviction in his state.

Shawn Merdinger is a security researcher based in Austin, Texas, with seven years of experience in the network security industry. He currently works with TippingPoint (a security division of 3Com), analyzing VoIP security. Before Shawn joined TippingPoint, he worked as a Security Research Engineer with the Cisco Systems Security Technologies Assessment Team (STAT) and Security Evaluation Office (SEO), where he performed vulnerability assessments on a variety of devices, technologies, and implementations. Shawn holds a master's degree from the University of Texas at Austin. Shawn is also an avid supporter of the local non-profit group AustinFreeNet, which helps to bridge the Digital Divide.