CTOs to watch

Among the InfoWorld CTO 25 applicants, we found four special executives whom we wanted to cite for their forward-thinking and leading-edge activities. Not surprisingly, three of them work at security firms, where they believe strongly in the concept of building in security rather than bolting it on later; the fourth is focusing on reusing components in Java and .Net.

Carl E. Banzhof, CTO of Dallas-based Citadel Security Software, eats, breathes, and sleeps security management. His company’s Hercules software, which he designed, fixes potential security holes identified by other vendors’ vulnerability scanners. Banzhof is also on the board of Open Vulnerability Assessment Language, which aims to establish standards for identifying and naming vulnerabilities. 

Brent Carlson, vice president of technology and co-founder of LogicLibrary , is on the forefront of migrating Java-based code to the .Net framework while preserving the basic Java capabilities after it’s recompiled. As a result, common functionality is maintained on both sides, and developers can leverage expertise no matter which platform they’re comfortable with.

Gene Kim, CTO, vice president, and co-founder of Tripwire , works with both the Software Engineering Institute and SANS on security issues. His forte is studying IT shops that are highly efficient when it comes to security to develop best practices (an SEI report is due next month). “Security has far more to do with repeatable, verifiable IT operational processes,” he says, “along with the ruthless determination to detect and reduce operational variance.”

Mamoon Yunus, CTO and co-founder of Forum Systems , splits his time between customers and standards groups. Forum’s XML security hardware helps Fortune 100-ranked MassMutual meet the privacy regulations of the federal government. Yunus also participates in the XML Working Group and xml.gov to educate various government agencies about XML and Web services security and the use of message-centric security.