Neal O'Farrell is the founder and Executive Director of the Identity Theft Council, and a nationally recognized expert on identity theft and cyber security.

Once described as one of the world's Top 20 security experts, Neal began his career in information security nearly three decades ago and has taught security awareness to millions of end users and small business owners around the world.

Neal currently participates in a number of cyber security and identity theft task forces. He is a member of the working group of the Federal Communications Commission's Cybersecurity Rountable, and was recently appointed head of the Small Business Identity Task Force for the Center for Identity at the University of Texas.

An avid writer and author on security, Neal has authored more than 150 articles on security and has appeared in numerous publications around the world including CNN Money, BusinessWeek, SmartMoney, CNet, Information Week, the National Law Journal, and the South China Morning Post.

He is the author of "Double Trouble - Protecting Your Identity in an Age of Cybercrime," and "Think Security First -  Cyber Security Essentials for Today's Small Business." He is a former columnist with SearchSecurity.com, and Technical Editor for the "Hack Proofing" series of security guides from Elsevier Publishing.

Neal is Customer Security Advocate for Intersections, the leading provider of identity protection services that have protected more than 30 million consumers since 2000. Intersections operates the Identity Theft Assistance Center (ITAC) in Washington, a non-profit victim assistance service created six years ago for financial services companies to assist their customers.

Neal was also the Director of Education for security firm Zone Labs, makers of the award-winning personal firewall now used by more than 60 million users worldwide. At Zone labs he was also editor of The Zone, the monthly magazine and newsletter that provided security advice to more than 3 million readers in 120 countries.

In 2002 Neal founded Think Security First, a non-profit security awareness initiative supported by the Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Microsoft, Cisco, and McAfee. The goal of the program was to provide free security education and awareness to businesses, residents, schools, and law enforcement.

He is a founder and board member of the Center for Information Security Awareness, a non-profit partnership with FBI InfraGard to provide free employee security awareness training and certification to every workplace in the country. Other Board members include Andy Purdy, former cyber Security Czar and Acting Director of the National Cyber Security Division/US-CERT of the Department of Homeland Security; Dyann Bradbury, National Chair of FBI InfraGard; and Mike Levin, former Deputy Director of National Cyber Security Division at the Department of Homeland Security.

Neal was the first expert to train an entire police department in identity theft awareness, and that program has since been used by more than 200 police departments and police academies, as well as the FBI, the DMV, and US Attorney's Office.

Over his long career Neal has worked as a security advisor to financial organizations, governments, military, intelligence, and Fortune 500 firms around the world, and has taught security awareness to employees from a wide variety of organizations including Toyota, ChevronTexaco, Merrill Lynch, Cost Plus World Market, bebe stores, and the Government of Bulgaria.

Neal has been developing security solutions since the early 1980's, including the first voice-based biometric access control system for the banking industry, and was recently credited with creating the Identity Theft Score, the first personal identity theft risk analysis system to help consumers measure and manage their vulnerability to identity theft.

As a security educator Neal ran his first security conference in 1989, co-hosting with IBM one of Europe's first network security conferences. Since then he has been invited to speak at numerous industry conferences, including the Information Integrity World Summit, the Network Infrastructure Conference, the Financial Network Security Conference, and the Computer Security Institute Annual Conference.

Neal was also invited to Chair the first "Cybercrime on Wall Street Conference" in New York in January 2002.

Neal began his first security business when he graduated from the Dublin Institute of Technology's College of Marketing in 1982. By the time he was twenty-five he was regarded as one of the world's youngest computer security experts, helping Ireland's Top 5 banks to protect their networks from the first generation of hackers.

His achievements were recognized when he was awarded the contract to secure the first Irish Banks National Joint ATM Network and he was also retained to develop a security system for Ireland's fledgling cellular network.

In the following years Neal was involved in a variety of security initiatives, developing advanced encryption systems for government and military customers around the world. In 1988 he launched Intrepid, a government-backed project to develop a European rival for the U.S. Government STU3 secure telephone project

Neal has been at the forefront of technical innovation in the war against hackers and first started working on the challenge of identity theft in the late 1980's, developing technologies to help banks authenticate the identity of customers accessing their bank accounts and information.

In 1988 he installed the first two-factor authentication system on Irish banking networks - a technology which is now in the forefront of the battle against identity theft and especially phishing.

Neal is credited with developing the world's first encrypting fax machine (CipherFax) and later developed EtherPhone, the first product to deliver real-time, toll-quality encrypted speech over Ethernet networks.

He was honored for his work as a security entrepreneur by being selected twice as the entrepreneur to represent Ireland in the Export to Japan Study Program in Tokyo, in 1990.

In 1993 while developing a biometrics-based access control system for Britain's largest banks, he authored "The Big Small Business Guide," a best-selling business guide published by the London Evening Standard, one of Britain's most popular newspapers.