Email this Page

Kal Abdalla - Principal Architect

Download Executive Bio (PDF)

Mr. Abdalla has more than twelve years of experience in systems, database, and network security, security compliance assessments and development of security policy. He has worked for and consulted to Fortune 500 companies on deploying, testing, and managing secure infrastructures.

Since joining Network & Security Technologies over five years ago, Mr. Abdalla has focused on security for critical infrastructure. Currently Mr. Abdalla is assisting a foreign national government authority develop its security program for critical national infrastructure. As part of the engagement, Mr. Abdalla is leading an effort to conduct risk assessments of numerous infrastructure companies in oil & gas, power generation and transmission, and water desalination and transport. Most recently Mr. Abdalla assisted power companies in their efforts to achieve NERC CIP compliance by conducting gap analyses and developing compliance programs. Previous engagements included conducting a business risk assessment for distributing control centers, assisting in securing substation communications, and performing numerous logical and physical security assessments for utilities.

Previously Mr. Abdalla was a Program Manager at a large consulting firm. He has assisted Fortune 500 companies to improve the security of its operations and assets through achieving ISO17799 compliance, internal and external penetration testing, security assessments of strategic operating units, and rewriting of corporate security policies and standards. This work was critical in ensuring secure operations and the integrity of each organization’s information assets.

Prior to consulting, Mr. Abdalla spent three years with Enron between Enron Corporate and Enron Broadband Services. While at Enron Corporate, Mr. Abdalla managed Enron’s Internet infrastructure worldwide, developed their security policy and instituted their information security program. This included the deployment of firewalls and intrusion detection systems, standards development and the security architecture design for Enron Online, Enron’s trading and financial transaction platform. While with Enron Broadband Services, Mr. Abdalla hired and managed the Information Systems Security team. This team was responsible for the security of both the corporate network and the customer network which streamed real time multimedia content for clients.

Mr. Abdalla is a Certified Information Security Manager and received a Bachelor of Science degree from The University of Texas at Austin. While at The University of Texas, he majored in Computer Science.



NEWS & EVENTS

February 2012 Customer Testimonial
"I have never seen our technical staff actually ask for the same consultants again and again!" - Responsible Entity in the SPP region
January 2012 Customer Testimonial
"Anyone can come in and point to where the problem is, but N&ST was part of the team and worked just like we did. They were working consultants which is exactly what a small to medium size utility needs." - Responsible Entity in the SERC region
March 2012 Customer Testimonial
"N&ST never sat around waiting for us to tell them what to do and came to us when they had questions, but never overburdened us. We are looking forward to working with them again in the future!" - Responsible Entity in the ERCOT region
4/19/2012 - FERC approves Version 4 of the NERC CIP Standards
As many of you are aware, CIP Version 4 was on this morning’s agenda at FERC’s public meeting.  This morning, FERC approved agenda item E-6 without comment.  For your information, HERE is the item from FERC’s meeting summary.