Chris Valasek is a

computer security Computer security, cybersecurity (cyber security), or information technology security (IT security) is the protection of computer systems and networks from attack by malicious actors that may result in unauthorized information disclosure, the ...

researcher with Cruise Automation, a self-driving car startup owned by GM, and best known for his work in automotive security research. Prior to his current employment, he worked for

IOActive IOActive is an independent research fueled security services firm active in several areas. They are known for reporting high severity security vulnerabilities in a variety of products. IOActive has offices in Seattle, London, Dubai and Madrid. IO ...

Coverity Coverity is a proprietary static code analysis tool from Synopsys. This product enables engineers and security teams to find and fix software defects. Coverity started as an independent software company in 2002 at the Computer Systems Laboratory ...

, Accuvant, and IBM . Valasek holds a Bachelors in Computer Science from

University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a public state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The university is composed of 17 undergraduate and graduate schools and colleges at its urban Pittsburgh campus, home to the universit ...

. He currently lives in

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

. Valasek has publicly demonstrated many security vulnerabilities, with particular focus on

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

heap exploitation. His 2009 presentation "Practical Windows XP/2003 Heap Exploitation" at BlackHat presented a novel approach to gaining elevated access in a Windows environment. Later research, such as his 2010 paper "Understanding the Low Fragmentation Heap: From Allocation to Exploitation" demonstrated ways to circumvent vendor mitigations to the approaches outlined in his prior work. In 2013, he and

Charlie Miller Charles Miller (born 18 March 1976) is a Scottish retired association football, footballer. He started his career at Rangers F.C., Rangers, and was voted the SPFA Young Player of the Year in 1995 during his time with the club. After spells with ...

demonstrating a number of attack vectors against ECUs in automotive control networks. Together with Miller, they have produced a survey of remote attack surfaces in then-current model year automobiles, an important first step in establishing the state of the art of automotive security and safety research.

References

https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/talkingtech/2017/07/31/gms-self-driving-car-unit-cruise-hires-famous-car-hackers/525651001/

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Valasek, Chris Living people University of Pittsburgh alumni People associated with computer security 1982 births