Gary Warner is the Director of the UAB Computer Forensics Research Lab and the Director of Threat Intelligence for DarkTower. After spending twenty years in industry, culminating as an IT Director at Energen Corporation, Warner came to UAB in 2007 where he was instrumental in creating UAB’s Digital Forensics academic program. Warner has worked closely with law enforcement since 2000, serving for ten years as a Task Force Officer on the Birmingham FBI Cybercrime Squad where he assisted on national and international investigations, primarily in the areas of malware and phishing.
Warner’s lab has been contracted for cyber intelligence services from Microsoft, Facebook, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, eBay, and a variety of NGOs and Government Agencies, including DARPA, the United Nations, Homeland Security Investigations, FDA, and most recently a $4 million grant from DHS Science & Technology to support the development of new tools for social media analytics related to terrorism and drug trafficking networks.
Warner has 35 academic publications related to cybercrime investigations and forensics, including the Journal of Digital Forensics Security and Law, the International Journal of Multimedia Data Engineering, and the International Journal of Digital Crime and Forensics.
Warner co-created the Birmingham Chapter of the FBI’s InfraGard program, hosting its first meeting at Energen on September 9, 2001. Since that time, Warner has served in a variety of positions within InfraGard, including President, Regional Director, and National Board member, and networking with InfraGard members across the country.
Warner is a frequent conference speaker, having presented at more than 230 conferences on a variety of topics including malware, cybercrime investigations, and terrorism. He has been a regular speaker at the Microsoft Digital Crimes Conference, the FBI’s Digital PhishNet Conference, the FBI’s Slam Spam Conference, the Team Cymru/Underground Economy Conference, and the NCI/JTF Virtual Currencies Conference. He has provided training for more than a thousand Police Officers and Agents from more than sixty countries in venues including InterPol Headquarters, InterPol’s Global Innovation Center, the Council of Europe, and the National Police Academy in Santiago, Chile.
In the area of Financial Services, Warner has been a frequent trainer at the FDIC’s Cyber Fraud Working Group, and has spoken multiple times at the FS-ISAC annual summit, the American Bankers Association Risk Conference, the American Bankers Association Fraud Manager’s Annual meeting, the Canadian Bankers Association CSIRT Conference, and the UK’s Cyber Defense Alliance. He has also been invited to keynote the American Express annual security summit, the Discover Network Fraud and Risk Summit, and the Chase Payment Tech Security Summit. Bank InfoSecurity magazine named Warner one of the “Top Ten Influencers” in Information Security.
In 2012, patents licensed from the lab were used to create Malcovery Security which was later acquired by PhishMe where Warner served for two years as the Chief Threat Scientist.
In 2018, Queen Associates, an 18 year old professional services and recruitment firm, created a Threat Intelligence subsidiary, DarkTower. DarkTower principals partner with Warner and his lab to offer threat intelligence services to a variety of industries, including financial services, big retail, and online services companies, while providing opportunities to the more than 180 Digital Forensics students at UAB to gain real-world investigative experience.
