CDA in the News

By Andrew Hellpap
Daily Tribune Staff

When the U.S. Department of Defense needs advice to protect its vital computer networks, it calls a Grand Rapids business that remains a secret to many, even in the Wisconsin Rapids area.

Sami Saydjari, 45, is the founder and president of Cyber Defense Agency, a business that began and still is operated out of his house on 43rd St. S. He isn't surprised that his business has remained relatively unknown in the community: He said he never sought local exposure because most of his business is done in Washington, D.C.

Thomas Buss, Grand Rapids town chairman, said he had no idea a firm the federal government relies on for advice against cyber-terrorism resides in the middle of his town.

Wisconsin Rapids Mayor Jerry Bach was equally as surprised, but said he could understand why the agency was here.

"This is a perfect example of how mobile people can be," he said.

Still, the business hasn't remained a complete secret. He was interviewed for a CBS national news story March 26 on the topic of computer security.

Saydjari took an unusual trek to get to Grand Rapids. Born in Rice Lake in 1961, he moved to Oklahoma, then to New York. He attended college at Rice University in Texas, and received his master's degree from Purdue.

His desire to solve computer problems in college led him to what he calls the most difficult computer problem: protecting them, Saydjari said. "How do you secure the computer against attacks?"

This pursuit took him to the Defense Department and the Stanford Research Institute, where he helped develop ways to protect government computer networks from attacks by countries or terrorists who want to harm the U.S. network infrastructure, Saydjari said.

"That's pretty much been my career ever since," he said.

Things changed a little when he had his son, Andrew, now 9. Saydjari's son, in effect, is what brought Saydjari and his unique business to central Wisconsin in 2000.

"I wanted my son to have a Midwest upbringing," he said.

Saydjari started his 21-member agency in 2003. The firm now has five locations -- some out of homes, like his, others in offices -- including in the Washington, D.C. area, Minneapolis, Albuquerque, N.M., and San Francisco in what he called a virtually distributed company. It's considered virtual because most of its operations can be done over the Internet, he said.

Cyber Defense Agency has two specialties: strategic security consulting and research and development.

Saydjari's firm is working on a major project with the Defense Department, designing architecture for its global information grid, he said. This system is basically the department's next generation computer system, Saydjari said.

Cyber Defense Agency is seeking to expand, Saydjari said, particularly in the private sector. His business is aiming to help as many people as he can in the area of cyber defense against terrorists, he said.

In his estimation, no part of the American landscape needs this protection more than the power industry.

"They are at the heart of our civilization," Saydjari said. If an attack hit the electrical power industry, any information without some type of backup system is lost. Not to mention the other obvious problems with a mass power outage."

To see this effect, Saydjari said, people need look no further than the outage that occurred after Sept. 11, 2001, when much of the Northeast was out of power.

"That tells you the stakes we are looking at," he said.

Andrew Hellpap can be reached at 422-6728 or at ahellpap@wisconsinrapidstribune.com.

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