Oral history interview with Sheila Brand by Rebecca Slayton

Abstract

This interview with security pioneer Sheila Brand discusses her early training and career in mathematics and engineering before turning to her work in both private sector and government computer security. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Brand helped to develop and secure time-shared databases at Commercial Credit Corporation, shortly after Commercial Credit merged with Control Data Corporation (CDC). In the 1970s Brand worked on computer security in the Social Security Administration and the Inspector General’s office of the Department of Health and Human Services before going to the National Security Agency’s new Computer Security Center in 1982. There she authored the Trusted Computer System Evaluation Criteria (TCSEC), or “Orange Book,” which influenced computer security standards around the world. In her later career at the National Security Agency she worked in intelligence as well as continued standards development, for example leading the task force that developed the Unified INFOSEC Criteria. Brand also discusses the processes whereby she overcame multiple obstacles to women pursuing careers in science and engineering, and the process of becoming a manager as well as a problem-solver.

This interview is part of a project conducted by Rebecca Slayton and funded by an ACM History Committee fellowship on “Measuring Security: ACM and the History of Computer Security Metrics.”