William is a Senior Manager of Global Product Security within JCI GBS Ireland where his activities involve both enterprise and global product security.

On a professional capacity, William serves as a Program Committee Member for IFIP SEC, IFIP NOMS, SECRYPT, IFIP DBSec, IWSAC, AIMSA, SETOP and CRiSIS. He has also served as a Publications Chair for SETOP and CRiSIS. William acts as a reviewer for a number of computer security journals and conferences.

William also has experience (co-) managing and leading projects and research direction . William has directed and managed postgraduate student research direction and their career development. William had been charged with workpackage leader on a number of multi year EU funded research projects. William works well within a multi-disciplinary and multi-cultural team environment.

In the past, William was a Senior Research Scientist within United Technologies Research Centre Ireland where he carries out research in the Cyber Physical Security domain.

William held a role as a Senior Research Technologist within the Center of Excellence at EMC Ireland. He carried out research on Cloud and Data Center infrastructure security configuration management. While at EMC, William formed part of an EU wide multidisciplinary and multi-partner research team collaborating on the EU FP7 SPECS Cloud security project.

Previous to that, William held a role as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Department of Computer Science, University College Cork and was a member of the Cork Constraint Computation Centre (4C). He carried out research (directed by Dr. Simon Foley) on network security configuration, threat management and cyber-physical security. 

William holds a Ph.D. in Computer Security from University College Cork. He also holds the following degrees M.Sc. (research) and B.Sc. (honours) both from N.U.I. Maynooth. He previously held research posts at Waterford Institute of Technology's TSSG and at Ericsson Applied Research Laboratories, Ireland.

Summary of Industry and Academic Experience

• Member and active leader of GIS JIC
• Leader in Strategy, Innovation & Research Direction
• Global BU Team Collaboration
• Theoretical & Practical Cyber Security & Infrastructure Operations Experience
• Ethical Hacking Competencies
• Firewall, Intrusion Detection, Vulnerability & Risk Management

Research Interests (include)

Cyber-Physical Security Configuration Management:

- Smart Grid Security.

- Building Automation Security.

- IoT Security.

- Industrial Control Systems Security.

Autonomic Network Security Configuration Management:

- Firewall Synthesis & Analysis.

- SAN Switch Synthesis & Analysis.

- Smartphone Security.

Threat & Vulnerability Management:

- (Decentralised) Semantic Threat Graphs.

Compliance-Driven Security Configuration:

- Best Practice Standards.

            - For example, NIST SP 800 series, NIST SCAP and RFC's.

Cloud Security & next generation Data Center (ngDC):

- Automated SLA negotiation.

- Automated SLA Monitoring.

- Automated SLA Enforcement.

- Automated ngDC and Cloud systems security configuration.

Ontology Engineering:

- Applying Semantic Modelling and Reasoning Techniques to the Security Domain.

           - For example, firewall, XMPP, SAN switch, threat modelling and SCAP domains.

Professional Recommendations (include)

Dr. Jesus Luna (Director of Research at Cloud Security Alliance Europe)
"William has great analytical skills and positively contributed to the European project where we participated together (FP7 SPECS). In particular I can highlight his contributions to the overall design of the proposed Cloud system, where his skill proved quite useful. Overall it was a great experience working with him, and looking forward to future collaborations." 2015

Dr. Micheal O' Foghlu (CTO Red Hat Mobile)
"I was the co-ordinator for the SFI programme that funded the partnership between UCC and WIT and in this period William worked in UCC on issues related to this programme. William was an excellent PhD student and an excellent Research Assistant. He had a deep understanding of the theoretical principles of computer security and networking, and a very mature and focused attitude to his work. He was also an excellent programmer, able to implement his ideas in a proactive way. His entrepreneurial spirit was also to be seen in the way he took an interest in the full business lifecycle of any ideas he was engaged in. I'd be happy to recommend him for any academic or commercial software role." 2015

Dr. Robert Brennan (Senior research Fellow at Trinity College Dublin)
"William is smart, goal-focused and a great to work with. His security research directly contributed to the success of our joint project. I'm looking forward to collaborating with him again." 2015

Dr. Barry Mulchay (Senior IT Engineer at Qualcomm)
"William is energetic and outgoing. He is a dilligent worker with a keen eye for detail. William is also very easy to work with." 2008

Mr. David Cleary (Chief Technology Officer, SingleOSS at Huawei)
"William Fitzgerald worked in the Ericsson applied research group between January 2002 and March 2003, during which time he conducted himself in a most professional manner. While working for Ericsson Applied Research Labs, William was charged with many challenging tasks in the field of network management, focusing his activities in the area of security. Over his internship in Ericsson William adapted to an industrial research role quickly and contributed from the outset."

As a master graduate of Computer Science, William rose beyond his standing to become an integral part of our security research effort. As part of these activities he took a leading role, interfacing with other research colleagues in Ericsson's and demonstrated maturity in discussion with our development network management development units."

While William's tenure in our group was short he showed a great deal of promise and potential to become a leader in this field, mixing both theoretical and practical ability. With this in mind and without hesitation, I can recommend William for a similar or related role in security research. It is my belief that William shows a great deal of promise and aptitude for challenging role of industrial research." 2004

Mr. John Ronan (Project Manager at Multipath Networks)
"During his time in TSSG, William was the first person I would turn to when looking to bounce ideas off regarding network and firewall security. He was always available to discuss the pros and cons of any particular idea or proposed solution, bringing a wealth of knowledge to the discussion. I would not hesitate in recommending William and I would be delighted to work with him again at some point in the future." 2015

Mr. Niall Clancy (IT Director at Premier Networks LTD)
"William is an extreamly talented and self-motivated individual in the area of network security. William has great practical and commerical knowledge of the area he researches in." 2008

Dr. Stephen Brown (Senior Lecturer, Dept. Computer Science, NUIM)
"William completed his M.Sc. thesis in 2002 under my supervision. During this time he showed both his ability to do research in the area, and his dedication to his work. He worked hard during this period, and completed his thesis on time. In addition to his research, he provided support for our undergraduate students by demonstrating in the labs and marking continuous assessment."

His research involved adding performance monitoring probes to the Linux kernel, and analysing the results in order to understand the routing/forwarding performance of Linux. This required him to learn a lot about the kernel, both from a practical viewpoint in order to make changes, and also from a more conceptual viewpoint in order to understand its operation. He has successfully overcome a number of problems, presented by working in the Linux kernel, during his project.

William has good potential in relation to his future career. He has developed a good understanding of research methodology, he is very committed, and I would expect him to be successful at anything he puts his hand to." 2002

Mr. Eamonn Power (Software Engineer/System Administrator, WIT)
"While being focused on the detail of his work, Will has proven to have a broad range of knowledge on many other topics in and surrounding his domain." 2008