The Team
John Strand
Founder and CEO of Black Hills Information Security
Sounil Yu
Security Innovator
Megan Samford
Chief Product Security Officer
TJ O'Connor
Author of Violent Python
Tim Malcomvetter
Head of Managed Security Services at CYDERES
Jorge Orchilles
Principal Instructor, Author & Ambassador, SANS Institute
Jake Williams
Enterprise Risk Management Expert
John Strand
Founder and CEO of Black Hills Information Security
John is the Founder and CEO of Black Hill Information Security and the Founder of Active Counter Measures; he has both consulted and taught hundreds of organizations in the areas of security, regulatory compliance, and penetration testing. He is a coveted speaker and much loved SANS teacher. John is a contributor to the industry shaping Penetration Testing Execution Standard and 20 Critical Controls frameworks.
Sounil Yu
Security Innovator
Sounil Yu is a security innovator with over 30 years of hands-on experience creating, breaking, and fixing computer and network systems. He is the creator of the Cyber Defense Matrix and the DIE Resiliency Framework, which have shaped the views of the industry, regulators, and the overall security ecosystem. He serves on the Board of Advisors of the FAIR Institute and Strategic Cyber Ventures and is an adjunct professor at George Mason University's School of Business teaching the fundamentals of Cybersecurity Technologies. He chairs the Philosophy Track for Art into Science: A Conference on Defense, where attendees discuss and define meaningful concepts in security, create practical applications of those concepts, and document them for the purposes of broader implementation.
He previously served as the Chief Security Scientist at Bank of America, leading a cross-functional team focused on driving security innovation and a thriving startup culture to meet emerging cybersecurity needs, to serve as a challenge function, and to be a change agent driving unconventional thinking and alternative approaches to hard problems in information security. Before Bank of America, he helped improve information security at several institutions spanning from Fortune 100 companies with three letters on the stock exchange to secretive three letter agencies that are not. He also created and led a nationally recognized intern program with over 300+ students to create new capabilities and tackle tough challenges in cybersecurity.
He has 22 granted patents covering a wide range of topics, including threat modeling, graph databases, intrusion deception, endpoint security monitoring, tracking media leaks, attributing malicious requests, attributing devices to organizations, detecting logic bombs, security portfolio optimization, and neutralizing stolen files. In addition to CISSP and GSEC certifications, Sounil holds a master's degree in Electrical Engineering from Virginia Tech and bachelor's degrees in Electrical Engineering and Economics from Duke University.
Megan Samford
Chief Product Security Officer
Megan Samford, VP, Chief Product Security Officer (CPSO) for Energy Management at Schneider Electric, is a security executive with focus on industrial control systems security, critical infrastructure protection, and risk analysis. In her role at Schneider Electric, Megan is responsible for driving the product security strategy and program for Schneider Electric’s Energy Management business. During this time, Megan became the first female CPSO for a major industrial company without first being a CISO, and is currently the only female CPSO in this space. This is a huge achievement for women in industrial control systems security.
Prior to Schneider Electric, Megan was the Global Director of Product Safety and Security for Rockwell Automation, Product Security Leader for GE Global Research and lead for the GE Product Security Incident Response Team. While working in the public sector, she served as the Commonwealth of Virginia’s Critical Infrastructure Protection Coordinator within the Governor’s Offices of Tim Kaine and Bob McDonnell.
Megan brings a unique perspective to the security community, based on her diverse security background, with an interest in utilizing proven concepts from traditional critical infrastructure protection and emergency management foundations, such as Incident Command System and preparedness, and applying those to cyber, in particular for industrial control systems incident response. She is currently leading a community-driven effort, known as Incident Command System for Industrial Control Systems (ICS4ICS,) which seeks to establish a common language for responding to cyber incidents and provide avenues for mutual assistance between organizations.
Megan has served on numerous boards including Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), Security Analysis and Risk Management Association (SARMA) Department of Homeland Security’s Control Systems Security Working Group (CSWG), Trusted Computing Group (TCG), and Virginia Aviation Security Advisory Council (VASAC). She is also a returning 2020 Program Chair for the RSA Conference, “Secure All The Things” track.
She holds a bachelor’s degree in homeland security and emergency preparedness as well as a master’s in public administration, both from Virginia Commonwealth University.
TJ O'Connor
Author of Violent Python
TJ O’Connor, Ph.D., LTC (Ret)
Ph.D., Computer Science, NC State University, 2019.
M.S., Computer Science, NC State University, 2008.
B.S., Computer Science, US Military Academy at West Point, 1999.
Dr. O’Connor’s research has centered on computer security with an emphasis on internet-of- things security, machine learning approaches for security, software-defined networking, information security education and wireless security. He has authored a book in the area and published his research in the proceedings of several academic conferences. His latest work investigated sensor blinding and state confusion attacks against internet-of-things devices and was recognized as the best paper for WiSec 2019. Dr. O’Connor served 20 years as an Army Officer, retiring in 2019 at the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. His service included an academic appointment to the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department at the US Military Academy and four assignments supporting the Special Forces, from the tactical level in Afghanistan and culminated as the Chief Information Officer for the 1st Special Forces Command Headquarters. Dr. O’Connor is active in cyber security competitions, winning the National Defense University Cyber Competition, setting the high score for the SANS Netwars tournament, co-coaching two winning teams at the NSA’s Cy- ber Defense Competition, and leading the Red Team efforts for the Southeast Regional Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition. He is currently the Program Chair for the Information Assurance and Cybersecurity program at Florida Institute of Technology.
Tim Malcomvetter
Head of Managed Security Services at CYDERES
Hi! My name is Tim MalcomVetter (@malcomvetter). I started using, building, and breaking computers in the 1980s as a kid, and started getting paid for it in 2000. Along the way, I’ve consulted with Fortune 500s, hacked mainframe sockets to web APIs, fuel pumps to mobile apps, led e-commerce dev teams, deployed enterprise security solutions, and made plenty of mistakes.
Currently, I’m quite fortunate to run a great RED TEAM program at the world’s largest company, simulating adversaries across 5 continents with fantastic teammates I’ve been able to recruit/retain (hobby and career aligned)!
Along the way, I have also earned several degrees, certifications, held a PhD research fellowship, presented at many conferences, and contributed open source software.
Jorge Orchilles
Principal Instructor, Author & Ambassador, SANS Institute
Jorge Orchilles is a SANS Principal Instructor, creator of the C2 Matrix project, author of the Purple Team Exercise Framework, and co-author of SANS SEC565: Red Team Operations and Adversary Emulation. He was a founding member of MITRE Engenuity Center of Threat-Informed Defense as well as an active contributor to MITRE ATT&CK and Atomic Red Team. He is a Fellow at the Information Systems Security Association (ISSA) and National Security Institute. Prior, Jorge was CTO at SCYTHE and led the offensive security team at Citi for over 10 years.
Jorge Orchilles co-authored the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) and A Framework for the Regulatory Use of Penetration Testing in the Financial Services Industry, and is the author of Microsoft Windows 7 Administrator’s Reference. Jorge holds post-graduate degrees from Stanford and Florida International University in Advanced Computer Security & Master of Science. Jorge speaks English, Spanish, and Portuguese, in decreasing levels of fluency. When he’s not hacking, teaching, or writing, you’ll find him watching and playing soccer. For more updates on Jorge, follow him on Twitter: @jorgeorchilles
Jake Williams
Enterprise Risk Management Expert
Jake Williams, a cybersecurity expert has two decades of experience in secure network design, penetration testing, incident response, forensics and malware reverse engineering. He has worked with many government agencies in information security at federal, state, and local levels. Williams is an IANS Faculty Member and also works as a SANS Analyst. He is a prolific speaker on topics in information security and has trained thousands of people on incident response, red team operations, reverse engineering, cyber threat intelligence, and other information security topics. Jake is the two time winner of the DC3 Digital Forensics Challenge, a recipient of the DoD Exceptional Civilian Service Award, and is one of only a handful of people to ever be certified as Master Network Exploitation Operator by the US Government.
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