BSides Atlanta 2024

Aaron Butler, before anything else, is but a simple black guy with a laptop. As Founder of the BlackHack Society, Home for Ethical Hackers, he has been in the hacker world for 20 years and has a background in Network Engineering, Linux, Incident Response, GRC, and Product IOT Security. When he's not hacking the planet and convincing people that there's a (non-existent) pool on the roof they should -totally- check out, he's out traveling looking for his next great experience, looking to try new foods, or attending conferences, festivals, and events.

Abhinav Srivastava is the founder and CEO of Breez Security, bringing over 20 years of experience in cybersecurity. He most recently served as Chief Information Security Officer and VP of Infrastructure at Frame.io, which was acquired by Adobe for billions of dollars. Prior to his role at Frame.io/Adobe, Abhinav dedicated six years at AT&T Shannon Labs, focusing on systems, cloud, IoT, analytics, data center technologies, and network security R&D. He has published over 40 research papers in peer-reviewed conferences and journals and holds multiple patents. Abhinav earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Georgia Tech.

Aishwarya Desai is a Senior Digital Forensics and Incident Response (DFIR) Consultant at Aon, with 5 years of experience in the field. He has led numerous engagements, including ransomware attacks, unauthorized access incidents, and business email compromise cases.

Allie Hunter is a Cybersecurity Awareness Manager and Advisory Board Member with experience in promoting cybersecurity best practices and awareness. She is dedicated to ensuring organizations understand and implement effective cybersecurity measures. Allie also volunteers as a Marketing Manager/Moderator for Fireside Chat with IT/Cyber Leaders and contributes to quality assurance initiatives with Women in Technology (WIT). Her diverse educational background includes degrees and certificates in Marketing Management, Fine Arts, and Psychology, along with IT and Cybersecurity from Kennesaw State University, College of Coastal Georgia and Emory University.

By day, he is a Fractional CISO and Cybersecurity Advisor for multiple companies building, running, and optimizing cybersecurity programs. By night, he champions cyber safety and ethics education throughout society via the 501(c)3 nonprofit Savvy Cyber Kids he founded. Ben has presented at the World Economic Forum, NACD directorship training, RSA Conference, TEDxSaintThomas, TEDxKids@Vilnius, GISEC Global, InfoSec World, SecureWorld, IEEE, ACM, CSO50, CIO/CISO Summits, and many other events. In addition to his numerous publications, Ben has been featured in the New York Times, Wired, Bloomberg, BBC, Kiplinger, Good Morning America, Good Day Atlanta, CNN HLN, Fox News, RogersTV, among others.

Ben S. Knowles @dfirnotes (they) is a cybersecurity leader and educator in the Atlanta, Georgia, USA area. Ben presents at local groups and conferences on analysis, forensics, and security education, led Community classes on defense, response, and analysis with the SANS Institute, and has bugs and patches in a few public tools. Currently they are a cybersecurity architect at a large corporation.

Brandy Vargas is the Sr. Manager of Incident Response on the eRisk team for Crum and Forster. In this role she provides cybersecurity consulting services to internal and external stakeholders during the underwriting and claims process, and serves as a resource to C&F’s insured throughout their cyber insurance policy. Brandy previously worked at Avalon Cyber, a MSSP, where she was the director of cybersecurity operations overseeing incident response, penetration testing, vulnerability assessments, and managed detection and response. Prior to Avalon she worked for Flowers Foods as a litigation support specialist championing the company’s legal initiatives as it related to class-action litigation, eDiscovery, digital forensics, cybersecurity, internal investigations, and corporate compliance. Brandy has a masters in the study of law degree with a focus in business law and corporate compliance from Wake Forest Law. She also holds various cyber certs, including the CISM, CCSK, Security+, ECIH, and some Microsoft cloud certs.

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Dr. Catherine J. Ullman is a security researcher, speaker, author, and Principal Technology Architect, Security, at the University at Buffalo with over 20 years of highly technical experience. In her current role, Cathy is a digital forensics and incident response (DFIR) specialist, performing incident management, intrusion detection, investigative services, and personnel case resolution in a dynamic academic environment. She additionally builds security awareness among faculty and staff which educates and informs users about how to prevent and detect social engineering threats, and how to compute and digitally communicate safely. Cathy has presented at numerous information security conferences including DEF CON and Blue Team Con. Cathy is a contributor to the O’Reilly title 97 Things Every Information Professional Should Know and the author of the Wiley title The Active Defender. In her (minimal) spare time, she enjoys visiting her adopted two-toed sloth Flash at the Buffalo Zoo, researching death and the dead, and learning more about hacking things to make the world a more secure place.

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BSides Atlanta organizer
Chief Curmudgeon Officer

Gabe is a senior security engineer with experience in endpoint security, SaaS security, DLP, and threat detection. He focuses on enterprise threats to high-tech businesses, building scalable engineering solutions to materially reduce risk for organizations. He also volunteers time with Columbus State University and with extracurricular organizations in the community towards Cybersecurity students looking to enter the field.

Gabe holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Columbus State University and a M.S. in Cybersecurity from NYU.

Hannah is the Chief Strategy Officer with CG Silvers Consulting, a boutique cybersecurity consulting firm based in Atlanta, Georgia.

Hudson Bush is a Security Architect who has been immersed in hacking and infosec since his teenage years. His experience ranges from consulting for some of the world’s largest companies, managing security for major enterprise mergers and acquisitions, and building a security program from the ground up at a security startup. With this broad expertise and passion for the field, Hudson’s mission is to share his lessons so others can learn from his mistakes.

Broadcaster of cyber security realism

Knox serves as Security Engagement Manager for Alias Cybersecurity. Quickly moving through the ranks after joining Alias in 2022. He brings cybersecurity, business development, and project management expertise to each engagement. He also has experience in SOC management services, network penetration testing, and risk compliance. Knox conducts IT auditing, incident response, security assessments & awareness training, and performs social engineering for Alias as well. After being promoted from Security Engineer to Security Engagement Manager, Knox manages a team of security engineers & analysts while also overseeing both engineering and SOC projects.

Matthew Dobbs is a seasoned cyber security professional and industry leader delivering cyber range programs. Matthew has played pivotal roles in leading various cybersecurity initiatives, including the delivery of physical cyber ranges, development security best practices for 5G use in manufacturing, and testing of autonomous systems. Matthew's expertise includes enterprise security architecture, automated testing systems, integrating security portfolios, and incident response optimization. He has incorporated this experience into designing and implementing high impact cyber range and training solutions for enterprises, major financial institutions, universities, and critical infrastructure organizations worldwide. His contributions have earned him various recognitions, including the 2019 Edison Award and the 2019 InAVation Award for Control Room of the Year. Matthew is also an active speaker and blogs on cybersecurity topics.

DevSecOps Nerd

Phil Brass moved to Atlanta in 1998 to work for Internet Security Systems, and has been a member of the security community ever since. He started doing network penetration testing and application security assessments in 2002, and has been in adversarial security consulting since then. He is currently Vice President of Professional Services at DirectDefense, where he oversees nearly 50 consultants doing appsec, netpen, PCI and OT/SCADA assessment work. In his spare time he likes to hike in the Cohutta wilderness, row on the Chattahoochee, play pickleball, and do CTFs with the DeepThonts CTF team.

I am an experienced IT security professional with over 20 years of hands-on experience in networking and information security. I have a passion for growing local information security groups and talent by speaking at conferences, creating online videos/articles, and teaching Red/Blue Team at a local maker space. Sharing my knowledge and learning from others is something I truly enjoy.

Throughout my career, I have worked with various platforms and networks in small to Fortune 500 companies. I can assist in identifying and collaborating to resolve both known and previously unknown issues.

Cyber Defense AI Developer🤖Senior Security Engineer/Analyst Lead 📊Threat Intelligence Developer🧠Lead Security Developer🖥️Penetration Testing Lead👨‍💻

I am a penetration tester and red teamer with eight years of information security and threat emulation experience. I specialize in simulating realistic attacks against complex environments. Ultimately, I am a hacker who cares about the way humans use technology, and even more about how it affects us.

Born in Lewisham, London, England Simon Abisoye is a graduate of Georgia State University. He works as a Staff Security Consultant for HanaByte.

Steven is a seasoned veteran of the network security space with over 18 years of experience in both offensive and defensive roles. Steven is the Founder and Chief Hacking Officer of White Box Security. With a degree in Information Security and Assurance from Kennesaw State University and numerous well recognized industry certifications, Steven is well-equipped to lead teams in assessing risk and testing defenses.

Tony Drake has over 25 years of experience in information security and systems administration. He has worked in roles ranging from systems design and administration to incident response, tactical intelligence, and managing pen tests. He has worked for the last 20 years in various roles in financial firms including brokerage, banking, exchange and payments in roles ranging from jack-of-all-trades "security guy" to tactical intelligence and malware analysis. He has worked in all aspects of Pen Testing from scoping, and planning to managing results, to incident response. In his current role he serves as lead security researcher for the Intercontinental Exchange, solving tactical security problems with creative solutions.
He holds a CISSP as well as SANS certifications in Incident Response, Web Application Pen Testing, Network Pen Testing and Threat Intelligence, and OSINT.

Xavier Ashe is currently a Senior Vice President in Truist’s Cyber Operations and Technology division where he was awarded the Truist Performance Award. He is Chairman of the Board for the Technology Association of Georgia (TAG) Information Security Society. Xavier is a Georgia Institute of Technology alumnus and has over 30 years of leadership experience in information security, working for various firms including IBM, Gartner, and Carbon Black. Xavier was the first hire at the startup, Drawbridge Networks, where he was instrumental in bringing the first microsegmentation solution for servers and workstations to market. Mr. Ashe has plenty of war stories, including the first DDOS attack ever, Target, Sony, Aramco, [REDACTED], and others. Xavier is an accomplished speaker and has presented at many security conferences including DefCon, BlackHat, RSA, BSides, Splunk .conf, SANS, and others.