About Us
Fitzgerald InfoSec's principal consultant Kevin Fitzgerald has worked in the Information Security area for over 30 years. His interest in “computer security” as it was known, began in 1970, while managing the computer centre at Footscray Institute of Technology - now Victoria University. Kevin, as a trained accountant, was bewildered by the absence of controls in the emerging business systems being applied at the time. It was as a Business School academic at Caulfield Institute of Technology - now Monash University - in 1975, that he really started his commitment to this area. He founded the Computer Abuse Research Bureau in 1978 which among other things collected statistics on computer related crime and ran public workshops and conferences. As a result he became a regular speaker at service clubs and a commentator in all media on Computer Abuse. It was through this exposure that he was drawn to business consulting.
In 1980 he started his own business consulting in computer abuse. The business was taken-over by a Texas firm, Total Assets Protection in 1987. Subsequently Kevin worked in senior positions at DMR Consulting, 1989 – 1994 as Principal Consultant, Computer Security; and KPMG Consulting, 1994 – 2002 as Director, Information Security. In 2002 Kevin returned to his own business now titled Fitzgerald InfoSec.
It was also in 1980 that he commenced his journal Computer Control Quarterly which was eventually taken over by Emerald Publishing in UK in 1992 as Information Management and Computer Security retaining Kevin as editor. He retired from the editor's role at Emerald after the last 2007 edition thus completing 26 years at the helm.
Kevin Fitzgerald - current CV
Professional Qualifications -
Master of Commerce, Diploma of Education, Commerce Degree
Member Business Continuity Institute (MBCI)
Professional Experience
Kevin’s early career in education in the late 1960s and 1970s focussed on computing systems in the business world. As a qualified accountant, he recognised the lack of controls in the early computing systems, and the potential risks early computer adopters were taking, which became the subject of his Master’s thesis. In 1978, he founded the CIT Computer Abuse Research Bureau (“CIT-CARB“) to explore more formally the nature and significance of these risks to businesswhile working at Caulfield Institute of Technology. Kevin chaired this organisation, later becoming known as ACARB when it moved to RMIT, until 1987. One of his first tasks at CIT-CARB was to develop a risk management methodology. This technique has been refined to the tool that Kevin uses in consulting tasks today, both in the Information field and in enterprise-wide risk management projects.
By 1980, he had founded his own consulting business specialising in Information Security. The specialisations Kevin has developed over the last 30 years to support his consulting business have included: Risk Management; Physical and Logical Security; Crisis Management, Business Continuity; ICT Disaster Recovery; Security Policies, Standards and Guidelines, Information Security Review/Audit, Human Aspects of Information SEcurity and Assurance (HAISA) and Privacy Impact Asessments.
Kevin is recognised as a leading consultant in the Information Security discipline with specialisations which involve the management aspects of Information Security as distinct from purely technical aspects. His projects in these areas have included major banking, finance and insurance, government departments and agencies( in all levels of government), mining, education, transport, communications and manufacturing organisations. He has successfully completed over 210 projects in the Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery area, over 85 projects in the Risk Management area, and over 95 projects in the Risk Review area. In 2005, he won the task of developing the Whole of Victorian Government’s ICT Disaster Recovery Framework consisting of policy, standards, and guidelines, which are currently being implemented throughout government departments and agencies in Victoria.
Following the takeover of his consulting company in 1987 by Total Assets Protection (a Texas-based company), Kevin has worked in senior positions at DMR (Principal Consultant, Computer Security - five years) and KPMG Consulting (Director, Information Security - nine years). Kevin left KPMG in 2002 to rejoin his own consulting firm now known as Fitzgerald InfoSec.
Contacts for Kevin Fitzgerald 613 95795930, and 61(0)427 795930
kevin@fitzgeraldinfosec.com.au