SCYTHE | Join Unicon 2025 Fall Edition | Leading Cybersecurity Event

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Discover the Future of Cybersecurity at UniCon 2025 - Fall Edition! 🦄

Join us for an unmissable online streamed event on September 17, 2025, from 11:00 AM ET to 5:30 PM ET, where industry leaders converge to redefine proactive defense strategies. Hosted by SCYTHE and co-hosted by IANS (featuring a dedicated management track), this edition is proudly sponsored by IANS, VanishID, Nucleus, and Xona.

Dive deep into cutting-edge topics like Adversary-Informed IT and OT/ICS Proactive Security, Security Resilience, and Cybersecurity Management. Gain actionable insights from top experts to fortify your organization's defenses against evolving threats.

Don't wait, mark your calendar today for UniCon 2025 - Fall Edition. This is the cybersecurity event you can't afford to miss!

*The sponsors and speakers within the IANS track are independent and do not represent or reflect the views of IANS.

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About SCYTHE's UniCon

UniCon is SCYTHE’s free, virtual conference dedicated to cyber resilience, purple teaming, and proactive security. This fall, it dives into Adversary-Informed IT and OT/ICS Security, Security Resilience, and Cybersecurity Management. Built on SCYTHE’s approach of safely emulating real-world adversaries, UniCon gives security teams the insights they need to understand their exposures, validate defenses, and strengthen collaboration between red and blue teams, all to stay ahead of evolving threats with confidence.

SCYTHE is a leader in Adversarial Emulation & Validation (AEV), helping organizations proactively improve their cybersecurity resilience.

📆 17 September 2025

🕑 11:00 AM - 5:30 PM (ET)

Time

Speaker

Session

Talk Description

Track

11:00 - 11.05 AM

Bryson Bort & Marc Brown

UniCon Kick-off

Intro and welcome

11:05 - 11:30 AM

Niloo Howe

Fireside Chat

Tech and Modern Warfare

Unicorn

11:30 AM - 12:00 PM

Gerald Auger

Simply Cyber

As AI systems increasingly handle threat detection, incident response, and even strategic security decisions, cybersecurity professionals face a fundamental question: What makes human intelligence irreplaceable in our field? This talk moves beyond the technical capabilities of AI to explore the evolving relationship between human expertise and artificial intelligence in cybersecurity. Gerald Auger, PhD and Mick Douglas will challenge attendees to reconsider what uniquely human skills—intuition, ethical reasoning, creative problem-solving—mean in a world where machines can analyze threats faster than any human ever could. Through exploring the philosophical and practical implications of this partnership, we'll help you discover not just how to coexist with AI, but how to leverage your distinctly human capabilities to become a more effective cybersecurity professional.

Unicorn

12:00 - 12:30 PM

Mea Clift

Back to Basics: why we get it wrong and how to get it right

Firewalls don’t stop culture gaps- true security comes from strategy, leadership, GRC and more. Lets discover how to move beyond checkboxes, align security with priorities, mature our organizations, and turn GRC into a driver of resilience and growth.

Unicorn

12:30 - 1:00 PM

Justin Elze & Jamie Williams

You Should Absolutely Think Like Halfway Crooks

Whether it's crime, APT, or just “why not?” shenanigans – we have a continuous stream of wisdom to steal from offensive research and capabilities.

Unicorn

1:00 - 1:15 PM

Sponsor Demo: Vanish ID

Special Demo

Get to know more about VanishID.

Unicorn

1:15 - 1:30 PM

Sponsor Demo: Nucleus

Special Demo

Get to know more about Nucleus.

Unicorn

1:30 - 2:00 PM

John Strand & Bryson Bort

When the AI Bubble Bursts

Join Bryson Bort, CEO of SCYTHE, and John Strand, Owner & Security Analyst for Black Hills Info Sec, for their annual rant - always engaging and informative, often paradigm shifting. This year's focus will be on the promises & challenges of AI

Unicorn

2:00 - 2:30 PM

Nicole Hoffman & Trey Bilbrey

Threat Emulation & Hunting

Stop Hunting Ghosts and Clickbait. Every week, a new scary headline pops up: a zero-day, nation-state threat, or flashy malware name. The result? Organizations hit the panic button, leadership loses sleep, and teams chase ghosts that never show up. In this Ghostbusters-themed talk, we’ll unpack why these fear cycles haunt security teams, how panic spreads faster than phishing emails, and what it really takes to separate shadows from real specters. If you’re tired of ghost stories running your threat response, it’s time to call in a new crew.

Unicorn

2:30 - 3:00 PM

Alex Waintraub

Healthcare Under Siege: Lessons from the Frontlines of Cybersecurity

Healthcare organizations remain prime targets for cyberattacks, with patient safety, financial stability, and trust at risk. This session shares frontline lessons from real ransomware incidents, including how attackers gain access, move laterally, and disrupt care. Drawing on case studies and incident response insights, Alex Waintraub explores the human, financial, and regulatory impacts of breaches and outlines practical defense strategies.

Unicorn

3:00 - 3:15 PM

Gabe Diaz, Senior Solutions Architect, Xona

Sponsor Demo: Xona

Stay tuned for more

Unicorn

3:15 - 3:45 PM

Jake Williams & Liam Emmart

AI and LLMs in Cybersecurity: Offensive and Defensive Applications

AI and LLMs in Cybersecurity: Offensive and Defensive Applications”Explore how AI is reshaping cybersecurity—enhancing red team emulation with automated, adaptive attack generation and strengthening blue team detection—while also introducing risks like AI-powered phishing and adversarial ML attacks. This session will highlight how AI can dynamically create test scenarios aligned to an organization’s test strategy and objectives, optimizing for its unique network architecture, threat landscape, adversary profiles, and security stack. Attendees will also learn about practical validation frameworks for IT and OT environments to separate hype from reality and deliver measurable resilience.

Unicorn

3:45 - 4:15 PM

Bill Brenner

Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) Programs

Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) Programs”Learn how to build effective CTEM cycles—scoping, discovery, prioritization, validation, and mobilization—to deliver continuous insight into vulnerabilities. This session explores integrating red/blue team exercises across IT/OT environments, with a focus on automated testing in industrial settings to strengthen resilience.

Unicorn

4:15 - 4:45 PM

Jason D. Christopher

Maximizing GridEx and Tabletops: Moving Beyond Injects

Tabletop exercises remain essential for testing preparedness and strengthening collaboration across the energy sector. Yet too often, these activities are confined to scripted injects and discussion-based scenarios that fail to capture the complexity of real-world challenges. Even national-level exercises like, the upcoming GridEx VIII for North American electric utilities, can be adapted to bring further value to your organization. This session will introduce participants to strategies for elevating their exercise programs by integrating technical simulation, operational drills, and test beds/ranges. By combining these elements, organizations can add realism, provide workforce development through hands-on engagement, and validate security controls—especially those tied to NERC CIP requirements for GridEx, though this approach can be adapted to any security program. Attendees will walk away with practical approaches to enhance their participation in GridEx this November, while also gaining tools to transform any tabletop from paper-based discussion into a more impactful, real-world readiness exercise.

Unicorn

4:45 - 5:00 PM

SCYTHE Demo

Further information coming

Unicorn

5:00 - 5:25 PM

Chris Cochran

Closing Keynote: AI Winter is Coming – and It’s Worse Than You Think

The AI revolution promised to redefine industries, unlock human potential, and usher in a golden age of intelligence. But the reality we face today is far more complicated, and far more dangerous. AI solutions are consistently falling short of the hype, leaving behind trails of intelligent tech debt that many organizations cannot afford to repay. Meanwhile, threat actors are gaining ground, weaponizing AI at an alarming pace. And perhaps most unsettling, we’re watching AI replace human roles far ahead of schedule, often in ways that are careless, shortsighted, and corrosive to trust.This keynote delivers a state of the union on AI: why expectations are crumbling, how adversaries are outpacing defenders, and where the next shockwaves will hit. From the hidden risks of Malicious AI as a Service to the looming specter of true super-intelligence, we’ll examine the scenarios that are rarely spoken of on stage but urgently demand our attention.Yet this isn’t just a story of collapse, it’s a call to build differently. Avoiding an AI winter of disillusionment requires a new foundation anchored in three principles:Responsibility – governance and ethics that guide AI toward trust rather than exploitation.Security – resilient infrastructure, continuous testing, and red-teaming to stay ahead of adversaries.Human Ingenuity – using AI to augment, not replace, human capability and creativity.By facing the hard truths and embracing these principles, we can reject a future of brittle promises and instead forge a resilient AI era, one where innovation is grounded in wisdom, secured against adversaries, and powered by the very human ingenuity AI was meant to amplify.

Unicorn

5:25 - 5:30 PM

Bryson Bort & Marc Brown

Raffle Winner and Closing Remarks

Unicorn

Time

Speaker

Session

Talk Description

Track

11:30 AM - 01:00 PM

Jennifer Minella

Regulations, Frameworks & Gaps: What’s New in OT/ICS Cybersecurity

As industrial systems become more connected, regulatory momentum is catching up. In this session, we’ll walk through the latest cross-sector regulations and frameworks shaping OT/ICS cybersecurity in 2025, from NIS2 and CISA CPGs to pending zero-trust overlays and ISA/IEC 62443 evolutions. We’ll explore what these initiatives get right, where they fall short, and the common themes emerging across sectors. Expect candid insights on implementation challenges, coverage gaps, and what security architects, operators, and integrators need to prepare for next.

IANS

1:00 - 1:15 PM

Sponsor Demo

SCYTHE

IANS

1:15 - 1:30 PM

Gabe Diaz

Sponsor Demo: Xona

IANS

1:30 - 3:00 PM

Mollie Breen

Strengthening the Weakest Link: How AI & Automation Can Mitigate Supply Chain Risk

This session explores how AI and automation can transform your supply chain risk management—from intelligent contractor access monitoring to automated vendor risk scoring and anomaly detection in supplier relationships. Drawing from real-world implementations and recent threat intelligence specific to those with OT environments, we'll examine practical AI applications that can identify hidden vulnerabilities before adversaries exploit them. Attendees will leave with actionable frameworks for deploying AI-driven controls to strengthen their most vulnerable third party touch points.

IANS

3:00 - 3:15 PM

Sponsor Demo

Vanish ID

Further details coming

IANS

3:15 - 4:45 PM

Steve Martano & Nick Kakolowski

OT Complexity Changing the CISO Role in Manufacturing

The manufacturing sector has long been viewed as a laggard in infosec — dependent on specialized technologies, focused on production and slow to adopt digital capabilities but the threat environment has only become more challenging to defend against. The industry has been going through a digital revolution in recent years, and the rapid adoption of connected operational technologies is changing the CISO role in manufacturing. In this session, IANS Faculty Steve Martano and Senior Research Director Nick Kakolowski will use data from the IANS and Artico CISO Compensation and Budget Survey to discuss the manufacturing sector's ongoing evolution, particularly as it related to IoT and OT challenges. They'll provide a blend of benchmarking data and real-time market perspective to better help unpack this complex and highly-dynamic threat environment. They will help you benchmark against your peer group within the sector and offer guidance on how to advance your program in a shifting marketplace.

IANS

4:45 - 5:00 PM

Sponsor Demo

Nucleus

IANS

Time

Speaker

Session

Talk Description

Track

11:30 AM - 12:15 PM

Danielle Schneider

Emulating Threat Actor Reconnaissance of Human Targets

How threat actors leverage OSINT to identify high-value targets and build dossiers to plan attacks. Learn about pre-access techniques and procedures during the reconnaissance and resource development phases, and how you can prevent initial access by shifting cybersecurity left.

Partner

12:15 PM - 1:00 PM

Matt Polak, Founder & CEO, VanishIDCasey Ellis, Founder, Bugcrowd

Fireside Chat: Stories from the Front Lines

Horror stories from the front lines that impacted cyber and physical security, and how human risk intelligence and attack surface management can help organizations prevent them. Join the founders of VanishID and Bugcrowd during a fireside chat.

Partner

01:00 - 01:15 PM

Gabe Diaz

Sponsor Demo: Xona

Partner

1:15 - 1:30 PM

SCYTHE

Sponsor Demo

Partner

1:30 - 2:15 PM

Raed Albuliwi

Session #1: Disconnected Access — Closing OT’s #1 Threat Vector

Remote services such as VPN, RDP, and TeamViewer remain the top initial access vector for ransomware and other cyberattacks against operational technology (OT) environments. Despite years of investment in firewalls, segmentation, and monitoring, attackers continue to exploit these legacy connections as a direct pathway into critical infrastructure. This session will explore how Disconnected Access, an approach that removes direct network connectivity between user endpoints and OT systems, represents a shift in industrial cybersecurity. We will discuss why traditional remote access technologies have failed OT, how attackers exploit insecure vendor and OEM connections, and what leading organizations are doing differently to protect uptime while reducing costs. Attendees will gain a pragmatic framework for transitioning away from legacy access tools, while maintaining compliance with NERC CIP, IEC 62443, TSA SD2, and other mandates. And we'll present a customer example and how they transformed third-party access into a secure, auditable, and cost-efficient process.

Partner

2:15 - 3:00 PM

Raed Albuliwi & Viurniel Sanchez

Session #2: Customer Spotlight: Securing Vendor and OEM Access in Critical Infrastructure

Vendor and OEM connections are both essential to operations and one of the hardest risks to control in critical infrastructure environments. From software patching to maintenance and support, these third-party connections have historically relied on VPNs and other legacy methods that increase cost, complexity, and exposure. In this session, Xona’s Chief Product Officer, Raed Albuliwi, will host a discussion to share how modern access strategies are transforming this challenge into a strength. Together, they will walk through how organizations are using secure access for critical infrastructure to reduce threat exposure, strengthen compliance, and improve vendor relationships by delivering secure, auditable, and easy-to-manage remote access. Attendees will gain actionable lessons learned from real-world deployments that balance security, cost efficiency, and operational continuity.

Partner

3:00 - 3:15 PM

Nucleus

Sponsor Demo

Partner

3:15 - 4:45 PM

Chris Peltz

What even is CTEM now and what comes next?

Gartner introduced much-needed progressive ideas into find-and-fix domains of Security with the release of Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM). However, as we practitioners attempt to operationalize the fundamentals of CTEM within real organizations there is confusion and complication galore. This talk will share field-level insights on the current state of CTEM and will outline an upcoming open source framework that will provide complimentary clarity to Gartner's CTEM model.

Partner

4 - 4:45 PM

Steve Carter

Signals, Noise, and Priorities: How to Pick the Right Vulnerability Intelligence

Vulnerability exploitation is one of the top initial attack & intrusion vectors. The key to defending against these threats is leveraging vulnerability intelligence to triage and prioritize remediation, but there are dozens of feeds and sources to choose from. In this talk we will discuss how to choose the right vulnerability intelligence feeds and sources.

Partner

Niloo Howe

President of The Stratham Group & Member Board of Directors at Tenable

Justin Elze

CTO - TrustedSec

Bryson Bort

Founder and CEO at SCYTHE

Jamie Williams

Senior Red Team Engineer at CrowdStrike

Bill Brenner

SVP, Audience Content Strategy - Cyber Risk Alliance

Gerald Auger

Chief Content Creator - Simply Cyber

Nicole Hoffman

Senior Cyber Threat Intelligence Analyst

Matt Polak

CEO of VanishID

Gabe Diaz

Senior Solutions Architect at Xona

Alex Waintraub

Cybersecurity Leader

Mollie Breen

IANS Faculty and CEO & Founder at Perygee

Marc Brown

Head of Sales, Marketing & Product at SCYTHE

John Strand

Founder and CEO of Black Hills Information Security

Jake Williams

VP of R&D at Hunter Strategy and Faculty Member at IANS

Liam Emmart

Technical Lead at SCYTHE

Chris Cochran

Senior Advisor (AI & SecOps) at SANS Institute & Founder at Commandant AI

Jennifer Minella

Faculty Member at IANS and Founder and Principal Advisor, Network Security at Viszen Security

Steve Martano

Faculty at IANS and Founder at Artico Search

Nick Kakolowski

Senior Research Director - IANS

Raed Albuliwi

Chief Product Officer at Xona

Jason D. Christopher

Senior Vice President of Cybersecurity and Digital Transformation for Research & Innovation at Energy Impact Partners (EIP)

Danielle Schneider

OSINT Expert at VanishID

Steve Carter

Co-founder and CEO, Nucleus

Christopher Peltz

Director of Security Strategy & Architecture - Guidepoint

Leveraging SCYTHE for Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM)-1

AEV Guide

Our guide 'Leveraging SCYTHE for Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM)' explores how CTEM and AEV transform enterprise cybersecurity from reactive to proactive.

Download

Cyber Fitness Guide

This guide is key to a long-term approach to cyber fitness. Much like personal health, cybersecurity is not a one-time effort—it requires ongoing care, attention, and adjustments.

Download

CTI eBook

CTI is a cornerstone of modern cybersecurity, enabling organizations to proactively mitigate evolving cyber threats.

Download

Offensive Security eBook

For security leaders looking to navigate this challenging landscape, developing a comprehensive strategy is essential.

Download

Red Team eBook

This eBook serves as a comprehensive roadmap for organizations at any stage of their Red Team maturity.

Download

CISOs Guide

This framework guides organizations in progressing from ad-hoc exercises to a well-functioning team.

Download

Client Testimonials

SCYTHE improves our security control efficacy, optimizing budget spend and ROI, while also enhancing talent development, training, and partner relationships.

Ian Anderson

OG&E

SCYTHE's precision in adversarial emulation empowers our red team to simulate real-world threats efficiently, providing actionable insights and focus, while also enabling our blue team to rapidly test and validate security controls, significantly elevating our security posture.

Fortune 100 Insurance Company

SCYTHE has truly become an indispensable partner in our pursuit of cyber excellence, continuously empowering us to stay ahead of evolving threats and validate our defenses effectively.

Global 500 Telecommunications Company

SCYTHE has cut our MITRE ATT&CK testing from days to just moments.

John Strand

Black Hills Information Security

You don’t need to have tens or hundreds of analysts, a blue team, a red team, or cyber-intelligence experts to implement a purple team. You just need great security people interested in researching and understanding attacks. To start, you just need one TTP and a tool capable of receiving logs and generating alerts.

Camilo Ruiz

Dupaco Community Credit Union

SCYTHE is a technology every enterprise red team should have so they can prepare the blue team for engagements with cutting-edge offensive teams. The average dwell time of undetected compromises is currently measured in months and SCYTHE enables the red team to give the blue team something realistic to hunt.

Ron Gula

Gula Tech Ventures

Discover the Future of Cybersecurity

Unicon 2025 - Fall Edition!

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Discover the Future of Cybersecurity at UniCon 2025 - Fall Edition! 🦄

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Save the date! 17 September 2025 🦄

About SCYTHE's UniCon

UniCon Fall 2025 Agenda

Unicorn Track

IANS Track

Partner Track

Speakers at UniCon Fall 2025

Niloo Howe

Justin Elze

Bryson Bort

Jamie Williams

Bill Brenner

Gerald Auger

Nicole Hoffman

Matt Polak

Gabe Diaz

Alex Waintraub

Mollie Breen

Marc Brown

John Strand

Jake Williams

Liam Emmart

Chris Cochran

Jennifer Minella

Steve Martano

Nick Kakolowski

Raed Albuliwi

Jason D. Christopher

Danielle Schneider

Steve Carter

Christopher Peltz

Niloo Howe

Justin Elze

Bryson Bort

Jamie Williams

Bill Brenner

Gerald Auger

Nicole Hoffman

Matt Polak

Gabe Diaz

Alex Waintraub

Mollie Breen

Marc Brown

John Strand

Jake Williams

Liam Emmart

Chris Cochran

Jennifer Minella

Steve Martano

Nick Kakolowski

Raed Albuliwi

Jason D. Christopher

Danielle Schneider

Steve Carter