After decades in military intelligence, Ron Burgess brings unique perspective to cybersecurity

After spending decades working at the top levels of military intelligence, retired Lt. Gen. Ron Burgess is using his wealth of experience to support Auburn University’s burgeoning cybersecurity research programs.

Burgess spent much of his 38-year Army career in military intelligence, including 15 years in the Department of Defense and three years as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. Following his retirement from the Army, Burgess joined Auburn University in 2012 as senior counsel for national security programs, cyber programs and military affairs.

While data breaches can jeopardize the security of citizens’ personal and financial data, Burgess knows the national security ramifications of cyberwarfare can have far more severe consequences for the country.

“Take a look at some of our adversaries around the globe,” Burgess said. “They are out trying to do things in cyberspace not only to further their own national security interest, but they are trying to further their own economic interest.”

Beyond the national security implications, the economic ramifications are enormous. Computer security company McAfee has estimated that cybercrime comes at a cost of $1 trillion per year, while Juniper Research estimates that the cost of data breaches will increase to $2.1 trillion by 2019. For context, U.S. gross domestic product is approximately $18 trillion.

“That should be a concern to every American,” Burgess said.

At Auburn, Burgess takes a 30,000-foot view to the university’s cyber research and initiatives. One of his main goals is to internally connect researchers to address complex cybersecurity challenges through collaborative ventures, and also through external collaboration with private industry and different segments of the federal government thanks to his established contacts in Washington, D.C.

“At the end of the day, what it means to the university is you are able to fund graduate students and get people to work on both basic and applied cybersecurity research,” Burgess said. “Cyber research is a very large tent and when you start getting into the interdisciplinary aspects of that, it really does kind of open up whole new worlds. You can find yourself working across five or six colleges inside a university because, at the end of the day, you need all of those strengths.”

During his tenure at Auburn, Burgess has been involved in the growth of the Auburn Cyber Research Center and is now involved with the recent creation of the McCrary Institute for Critical Infrastructure Protection and Cyber Systems, which focuses on research at the intersection of cyber systems and our national infrastructure.

Since Burgess joined Auburn, the university has also been named one of 19 National Centers of Academic Excellence in Cyber Operations designated by the National Security Agency.

“We're very proud of that and we've worked very hard on that to make sure that we maintain that accreditation,” Burgess said.