Welcome,
I'm Dennis O'Connell, a certified CISSP and network professional in Metro Detroit.
I have worked in a wide variety of environments from large MSP's and corporations to small office environments. From large steel mills to retailers large and small. I am a 10y licensed and insured Michigan Professional Investigator in good standing. I am also associated with the Infragard and have passed the FBI background check. I regularly attend multiple security related events and am an active member of the ISC2 organization.
I'm currently the Director of IT at a mid-size law firm, where I am responsible for budgeting, designing, implementation and maintenance for all systems including but not limited to: servers, SAN/WAN/LAN, network and endpoint security, videos and telecommunications, wireless, physical/virtual endpoints, and personal devices. I am also responsible for all facets of the Cyber Security policy, infrastructure design, implementation, documentation and auditing.
I work to ensure that all solutions are secure and accessible to meet the needs of the company. I have implemented multiple SIEM, MFA and IAM solutions. I have both produced and contracted out pen-tests. I use various tools to threat-hunt and remediate potential threats. Having been the able to design and implement each component of each system at my current employer has led to a deeper understand of end to end security while maintaining accessibility. While security is paramount it means nothing without meeting the needs of the business and being a value add.
I've worked tirelessly with our vendors to ensure patching and mitigation strategies have been effective. I have developed all policies and practices which has allowed me to pass any audits. These practices includes but are not limited to, regular audits of policies, systems, penetration testing, security awareness training, and audits of our 3rd party providers.
I have prioritized my professional development to build the skills necessarily to meet the needs of my employer in an ever evolving technological landscape. While I've found many areas of technology personally interesting, none of them have brought me as much satisfaction and gratification as ensuring the on-going security of systems in my charge. While effective security systems can foster the security in a organization, I have found that it is truly proper security practices that enable an organization to identify and mitigate almost any security issue.
For more information about my work history or examples of projects I have completed, see the navigation menu at the top of this page.