Peter Tippett

Peter S. Tippett (born 1953) is an American physician, researcher, and inventor known for contributions to information security, clinical medicine, and technology.

These contributions include the development of the anti-virus program "Corporate Vaccine".

Born in 1953 and raised in Dearborn, Michigan, Tippett is an alumnus of Kalamazoo College and holds both a Ph.D. and M.D. from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.

He studied at the Rockefeller University in New York under Nobel Prize winner Robert Bruce Merrifield, directing his doctoral research efforts toward the metabolic indicators of peptide synthesis.

He completed his internship and residency in Internal Medicine at Cleveland Metropolitan General Hospital, and spent 1975-1985 engaged in biochemical research.

He ran a bulletin board system for CP/M software before the first IBM PC was created and was president of the Cleveland Osborne Group (a user group for the computers of the Osborne Computer Corporation) in the early 1980s.

He received his board certification in Internal Medicine in 1987.

He served as executive director of The Pacific Foundation for Science and Medicine from 1988 to 1992, an intersection of his clinical career with an emerging focus on technology, particularly in the arena of cybersecurity as well as the use and access protocols of the Internet.

While engaged in research at Case Western Reserve, Tippett moonlighted as an emergency room physician and instructor in Emergency and Outpatient Medicine and spent much of his early clinical career (1989-1995) in Emergency Medicine in Ohio and California.

It was in his role as president and chairman of Certus International, a publisher and developer of PC anti-virus and security software, that Tippett applied his research insights as a biochemist to the concept of computer "viruses" to develop the anti-virus software, "Vaccine," which was later purchased by Symantec in 1992.

His CEO role with Cybertrust led to a merger of Cybertrust by Verizon and to Tippett's role in the Verizon healthcare and security innovations divisions.

Between 1993 and 2000, he served on the board of the Computer Ethics Institute.

Tippett served as chairman of the Alliance for Internet Security in 2000.

He represented Verizon on the board of directors of The Open Identity Exchange (OIX) and the Information Card Foundation.

In addition to being credited with the development of one of the first anti-virus programs, "Vaccine", Tippett pioneered and commercialized a string of now-common technologies including what is now called the "Recovery Disk," processor image signatures, using hash-tables for trusted file execution and anomaly detection, aspects of mail merge and "un-do."

As chief scientist for ICSA.net, Tippett was one of a handful of experts to identify and address the ILOVEYOU virus that broke in May 2000 and provided key information to the Department of Justice about David Smith, the writer of the Melissa virus.

He was featured and on the cover of the August 2000 issue of Time Digital magazine.

Tippett's work in the cybersecurity space has led to roles as speaker, contributor and advisor to government and private sector organizations.

From 2003-2005, he served on the President's Information Technology Committee (PITAC), established by Congress in 1997 under the High Performance Computing Act of 1991 to "guide the Administration's efforts to accelerate the development and adoption of information technologies vital for American prosperity in the 21st century."

Tippett was Vice President of Verizon's Innovations Incubator and Chief Medical Officer for Verizon Enterprise Services from 2009 to 2015.

He is currently the Founder and CEO of careMESH Inc.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce awarded Tippett its first Leadership in Health Care Award at the Chamber’s first annual Health Care Summit (2012) for his leadership of Verizon's incubator.

Tippett was also Chief Scientist for ICSA Labs and previously served as president of the International Computer Security Association.

Tippett is currently an Adjunct Professor, Division of General Medical Sciences at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.

In November 2017, T.E.N., a technology and information security executive networking and relationship-marketing firm, announced that Tippett was the recipient of the 2017 ISE® Luminary Leadership Award.