Steve Dispensa, CTO & Co-Founder

Steve joined PhoneFactor (formerly Positive Networks) as Chief Technology Officer in 2001. Since co-founding PhoneFactor, he has had responsibility for product definition, architecture, product development, and operations. He also manages the overall technology strategy of the company.

Prior to co-founding PhoneFactor, Steve created Midwest Networking Associates in 1995, providing network consulting and integration services to ISPs, businesses and schools. In 1997, Midwest expanded into the Internet service business with a full line of consumer and business Internet access products.

After selling Midwest Internet in 1999, a consulting engagement with Sprint led to his hire as the Director of Network and Systems Architecture within Sprint’s Broadband Wireless Group. During Steve’s tenure at Sprint, he was responsible for the network design and implementation of Sprint’s fixed wireless broadband Internet service.

He also created and managed the systems development group, with responsibilities including development of the systems for monitoring and managing network performance. Other contributions to Sprint included the design of Sprint’s second-generation broadband wireless network and the corresponding network operations systems.

Steve received his undergraduate degree from the University of Missouri at Kansas City. He has several patents pending in the fields of computer science and telecommunications, is a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer, and is a Cisco Certified Internetworking Expert. He has been recognized three years in a row by Microsoft as a Most Valuable Professional for his contributions to the Windows kernel mode development community.

Steve co-hosts a twice-monthly internet radio show Security Break Live! where he and a guest co-host tackle the the latest IT security breaches – exploring how the attacks were perpetrated and how to protect against them. Steve also maintains a blog of the same name at securitybreaklive.com.

In addition, Steve has a technical blog at kernelmustard.com where he writes about Windows software development and technology in general and contributes articles to industry publications. Most recently, his article How to Thwart Network Attacks with Two-Factor Authentication was featured in the eWEEK Knowledge Center.