Jason W. Wells
Graduate Student, Master’s of Professional Studies, Cybersecurity
Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering
University of Maryland, Baltimore County
12:00noon–1pm
Friday, May 8, 2020
remotely via WebEx:umbc.webex.com/meet/sherman
Abstract:
The United States Secret Service (USSS) is widely known as the premier law enforcement agency that is charged with protecting some of the most important political figures in the world. Some of these protectees include the President of the United States, the Vice-President, the First Family and Second Family, and Heads of State visiting the United States, to name a few. A major part of the protective mission of the USSS is focused around “protective intelligence,” where agents are trained to identify concerning and threatening behavioral indicators in others, and then to address those issues in a proactive and positive manner and ensure that the community is safe from harm. This proactive methodology has been researched and applied for decades and has a very high rate of success. Now, other law enforcement agencies throughout the country have started to apply this training to their agents and officers. Can these methodologies be used and/or modified to recognize threats in cyberspace as well?
About the Speaker:
Jason Wells is a former special agent with the United States Secret Service, where he served for nine years from 2005 – 2014. During that time, Mr. Wells was extensively trained in identifying and addressing threat-related and concerning behavioral indicators, and how to address those behaviors in a positive and proactive manner. In 2016, Mr. Wells published his first book Our Path to Safety: A U.S. Secret Service Agent’s Guide to Creating Safe Communities (ISBN-13: 978-0-9982488-0-6) on how the community can identify these behavioral conditions in the same way that federal law enforcement does every day. Mr. Wells earned his undergraduate degree from the Virginia Military Institute and his first graduate degree from Henley-Putnam University in Strategic Security and Protection Management in 2014. Additionally, Mr. Wells has published 11 editorial articles in print media on improving safety and security methodologies in schools and businesses. Currently, he is an SFS scholarship graduate student at UMBC with plans to complete his degree in spring 2020. He and his wife, Blythe, have two children and have lived in Baltimore County since 2008.
Host:
Alan T. Sherman, sherman@umbc.edu
Support for this event was provided in part by the National Science Foundation under SFS grant DGE-1753681.