Lipscomb Alumnus' Net Reaction Joins the Fight against Hi-Tech Crime
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Bryan Thornton doesn’t swoop down out of the sky with a cape or a spider web. He enters a room the old-fashioned way rather than through a window. But his weapons against high-tech criminals are no less impressive than the superheroes of movies. Thornton, a 1998 Lipscomb University graduate, founded Net Reaction to help organizations prevent and recover from catastrophes or crimes that destroy data and from theft of information that could be costly to the organizations and consumers affiliated with them. Horror stories fill the news of identity theft, security breaches and destruction of critical company files. Thornton, however, knows that even though fighting these crimes can be challenging, it can also be successful.
Thornton brings to his role of founder and director of Net Reaction years of experience in working in this field of information security. After graduating from Lipscomb, Thornton and other Lipscomb alumni started a company that eventually merged with System-X. “That company grew and grew. We were very good at what we did,” Thornton explains, “but we were certainly in the right place at the right time as well.”
When Kroll, the world’s leading investigation, intelligence and security firm, bought out the company, Thornton stayed on board and continued honing his investigative skills. While at Kroll, Thornton circled the globe as part of their forensics team. “We dealt with cyber crime—any type of intellectual property theft, hacking or identity theft,” Thornton states, “really any crime that involves electricity in any way. We went all over the world doing those types of investigations: Bosnia, the Middle East, some areas that required an invitation and security clearances.”
One case sent Thornton to the World Trade Center on the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001. He was scheduled for a Monday morning meeting on the 78th floor of 1 World Trade Center, but his Sunday flight out of Nashville was cancelled due to mechanical problems. He flew out Monday instead and changed his meeting in New York to Tuesday. When he arrived Tuesday morning to sign in at the security desk, he was told he had been cleared to receive his permanent security credentials needed for his work at the Trade Center. Since the person authorized to print the credentials had not arrived for work, Thornton decided to walk for coffee first and then head back to the World Trade Center. Minutes after he left the building, the first plane hit.
“I would have been one of those people they just never found,” Thornton adds as he reflects on the timing of the day and what would have happened if he had been escorted up to the 78th floor instead of heading for coffee. He spent the next nine months in New York working with the actual clean up effort and working with companies who struggled with recovering information lost in the attack and relocating to new headquarters. Thornton states that the difference between businesses that survived and those who didn’t was whether or not the companies already had disaster plans in place. Setting up plans to prevent loss of information or minimize damage when something unexpected happens remains one of the primary objectives of Net Reaction.
While with Kroll, Thornton also had the opportunity to work with high- profile cases. He worked with the forensics investigation team involved with the Enron saga. Kroll sent an entire team to work with the Enron task force for over two years recovering destroyed and deleted evidence and managing that evidence. Thornton adds, “Net Reaction has the same capabilities now.”
Thornton doesn’t only go after the high-profile cases, however. At Net Reaction, half of his clients are Fortune 1000 companies. His other clients are smaller companies or government-based organizations. “One of my motivations for starting Net Reaction,” Thornton comments, “was to bring the abilities and skill sets we offer out to companies that can’t necessarily afford other larger services.”
Though much smaller than Kroll, Net Reaction doesn’t lack anything when it comes to experience and determination in stopping breaches involving secure information within organizations. Thornton acknowledges that within his industry “we have seen the switch from the lone operator to organized crimes. Criminal activity is an enterprise. Identity theft alone is a multi-billion-dollar-a-year industry. As criminals come up with new ways to steal data, we have to change, too.”
Thornton works with anti-virus and anti-phishing companies as well as local and national law enforcement agencies to stay one step ahead of criminals involved with high-tech crimes. Thornton knows his business. “Seeing our name on a potential witness list is pretty much a prompt to settle a case. A prosecutor isn’t going to put us on the stand to have me say I didn’t find anything.”
Thornton enjoys the satisfaction of knowing a crime has been solved, but he also enjoys knowing he has helped companies set up preventative measures in all aspects of their business. “Any place that has personal information—universities, banks, doctors’ offices, car dealerships—we are helping them put controls and systems in place to help them protect that information.”
He adds, “When you think of information security, you think computer stuff, but it is really more encompassing than that. It’s more holistic than that in that we are concerned with human resource policies, your physical security and your business continuity plan.”
You will never see Thornton swooping through skies or driving up in a Batmobile. Know, however, that when he arrives he will definitely take care of business.
--Chris Pepple