Alyssa Miller is a hacker who, in her pre-teens, bought her first computer and hacked her way into a paid dial-up community platform. She grew up in hacker culture, finding her hacker family in IRC channels during her adolescent years. While IT was not her original career plan, she ended up working as a developer and later a penetration tester in the financial services industry. As she moved into consulting, her focus on defending technology systems and personal privacy grew to the point where she was advising fortune 100 companies on how to build comprehensive security programs.

Alyssa is now the CISO at New York based Epiq Global. Still very much a hacker to this day, she’s built on that identity to grow her career. She is an internationally recognized public speaker and author of “Cybersecurity Career Guide”. She’s an advocate for helping others make a career out of their passion for hacking and security in general. She’s also a proponent for the open sharing of ideas and perspectives on improving our technologically connected world.

Angel Gamboa is truly one of the security consultants of all time. He has 6 years of information security experience in various disciplines ranging from application security to physical security. Throughout the years, he has not only studied rigorously but also learned much information from his peers.

My official title is Security and Platform Engineer at Recon InfoSec, where I try to keep all of the lights blinking in the right order. I have a few certifications to my name, which indicates that I can test pretty well. What gives me some perspective on topics like operationalization, cloud architecture, and realistic security measures is that over a 26 year history in IT and security I've split my time almost exactly between working as a developer and as an infrastructure person. This gives me a lot of context for understanding not only software, hardware, and cloud architecture, but also the people who build it, defend it, and break it. I've done a bit of work with the fine folks from SecKC, and you might see me hanging around online as BenFromKC.

Brian McCann is a Certified Knowledge Manager and a credentialed librarian. He specializes in knowledge management, user experience, and creating efficient workflows.

Throughout his 23-year career in the IT field, Eric has sought out and held a diverse range of roles, including technical manager in the public sector, Sr. Premier Field Engineer at Microsoft, and Security and Identity Architect in the Microsoft Partner Ecosystem. Currently he serves as a Product Technical Specialist at Semperis, focusing on ITDR and cloud identity resilience. Eric is a Microsoft MVP for security, recognized for his expertise in the Microsoft identity ecosystem. Outside of work, Eric supports the professional community, providing his insights and expertise at conferences, participating on the IDPro Body of Knowledge Committee, and blogging about Entra and related cloud security topics.

Fred Wilmot is a seasoned industry product figure and start-up innovator. He is a practitioner, builder, and security executive capable of getting into the details or discussing risk with the board and driving product vision from idea and concept art to revenue and customer value. Fred has led product, engineering, sales, services and customer success teams focused on customer delight, purpose-built software in the cyber security space for over 20 years. He built JumpCloud's security program as CISO, and Devo, as their first CISO, head of security products and engineering. As a practitioner, he has built security programs at start-ups and fortune 500s, responded to breaches as an incident responder, run security operations teams, CTI programs, and has been a figure in the community co-founding Red Team Offensive Village at DEF CON, the Texas Cyber Summit and any number of Bsides events. He is a principal at AMCyber Research and regularly keynotes at industry conferences and events.

As a director at 1898 & Co., Gabriel leads the ATPC (Advanced Threat Protection Center) focused on ICS (Industrial Control Systems). He works with clients to develop robust cybersecurity programs, ensures that clients are fully supported 24/7/365, and he is on the front lines of protecting critical infrastructure clients from cybersecurity threats.

Gabriel received a master’s in information security engineering from the SANS Technology Institute. For over 20 years, he has worked in cybersecurity across several industries, including banking, utilities, and government research.

Jered Bare is a cyber security professional, renowned for his "chaotic good" approach and a decade of expertise in information security. His skills span from cyber defense to purple team operations and application security, making him a pivotal influencer at major conferences. Internationally recognized, Jered was invited by the Panamanian government to lead a specialized course in packet analysis, marking his global impact. Additionally, his commitment extends to national security through his service in the Air National Guard, focusing on Cyber Defense Operations. Jered Bare embodies the intersection of knowledge, passion, and practical application in the cybersecurity domain, making his work both vital and inspirational.

I have been an IT Professional for 15 years, focusing on computer networking and telecommunications. Unprofessionally, I built my first computer in 6th grade to play Quake 2 and Mechwarrior 2. The first network I used was dial-up. My buddy and I would dial into each other's modems to play Quake 2 together.

I became interested in cybersecurity about 7 years ago when I worked for a bank. It fits my persona well because I have always been interested in personal/physical security. I participated in defensive-based pistol competitions and dabbled in MMA. I love cybersecurity and being safer in the virtual and physical world. It can be scary out there.

I have recently taken up the role of IT Security Administrator, and I am excited to share my experience with others.

Keelan Knox serves as Security Engagement Manager at Alias Cybersecurity. Quickly moving through the ranks after joining Alias in 2022. He brings Cybersecurity and Project Management expertise to each engagement. He also has experience in SOC threat detection & monitoring services, network security, and penetration testing. Knox's security team involvement also spans from IT auditing, incident response, security awareness training, and social engineering for Alias. After being promoted from Security Engineer to Security Engagement Manager, Knox manages a team of engineers & security analysts while also overseeing both engineering and SOC/SIEM monitoring projects.

Dr. Miller is a security consultant whom specializes in reverse engineering, assembly and computer theory. He taught Computer Science, assembly and reverse engineering for 8 years at the collegiate level. He co-taught a course “Reverse Engineering for Pentesters and Malware Analysts“ at BlackHat 2020. He has been called as an expert witness on more than a dozen Federal Cases, where he reverse engineered the NIT code provided by the government.

Nick Gicinto is an executive security leader and veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Tesla, and Uber as an insider threat, intelligence and security specialist. He is currently the CISO and Professor of Practice in Cybersecurity at William Jewell College.

Nick was recruited into the CIA and spent 10 years in the Agency amassing five promotions and 14 exceptional performance awards as an Operations Officer. His role as an OO was to collect foreign intelligence to brief senior U.S. policymakers, including use in the U.S. President’s Daily Briefing. During his CIA tenure, Nick focused on state-actor level threats and worked both counterintelligence and counterterrorism operations in the U.S. and abroad.

After leaving the CIA, Nick joined Uber’s Threat Operations team helping the company build a global intelligence capability in 40+ countries designed to keep Uber’s riders and drivers safe in addition to investigating leaks of intellectual property. He was recruited by Tesla to build the Global Security Response team, focusing on insider threat and investigations into leaked/stolen intellectual property. GSR’s investigations lead to multiple civil lawsuits vs. competitors and former employees, as well as law enforcement referrals and convictions.

Nick later moved to RiskIQ (now a Microsoft portfolio company) as a Vice President to build the Incident, Investigation, and Intelligence (i3) team, RiskIQ’s managed intelligence services (MIS) capability tied to its cybersecurity SAAS product. After growing the team to close to 40 members, Nick joined Chainlink Lab’s as the VP of Security Intelligence, helping the web3 company develop its world class security program from scratch.

Nick has formed two security consulting LLCs, one which he uses to provide security training for Christian missionaries, and another which he integrated into another security company where he served as Executive Vice President until joining William Jewell College. He also serves as an Adjunct Professor of Cybersecurity in SET University's Masters in Cybersecurity program, located in Ukraine.

Nick holds a BA in Political Science from William Jewell College, and a MS in Defense & Strategic Studies from Missouri State University.

Qasim Ijaz is a Director of Offensive Security at Blue Bastion Security and specializes in healthcare security and penetration testing. He has conducted hundreds of penetration tests in small to large environments with a focus on networks and web applications testing. His areas of interest include healthcare security, Active Directory, cybersecurity policy, and the "dry" business side of hacking. Qasim is a penetration test lead during the day and a teacher in the after-hours. Qasim has presented and taught at cybersecurity conferences, including BSides and Blackhat, on offensive security topics.

Dr. Stacy Thayer is a cyberpsychologist who has over 20 years of experience working with professionals in the security industry (30, if you count going to 2600 meetings and calling BBSes as a teenager). Her research has explored job satisfaction in the technology sector, neurodivergent friendly work environments, and burnout in the security industry. She is passionate about creating a positive and thriving working environment that will help support individual strengths and successes. Thayer is the host of the CyberPsych in Security podcast and manages the Cyberpsychology and Human Factors in Security Slack group. She is currently an Adjunct Professor of Cyberpsychology where she teaches Intro to Cyberpsychology, Security and Forensics, Human-Computer Interaction, and Virtuality. Prior to this, Thayer was the Founder of the Founder and Executive Director of SOURCE Security Conferences in Boston, Seattle, Barcelona, and Dublin before it was acquired in 2014.

Travis spends most of his days working in the cloud, container, and Kubernetes security space. He has worked in security for ~10 years. A large portion of his day to day involves working with containers and Kubernetes. Most importantly, he is one of the select few individuals to be recognized with an official certification from Microsoft as a Microsoft Office User Specialist in Microsoft Access 2000.

Vulnerable Researcher out in Virginia, born and raised in Kansas