BSides Roanoke 2024 Speakers

Brandon has a wide range of experience, including ham radio, hardware hacking, and penetration testing.

Charlene has over 35 years of experience in network design and security. She is a Security Specialist at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission where she performs agency-wide cybersecurity risk analyses and risk quantification. She is also an Adjunct Professor teaching Cybersecurity Risk Quantification at Boise State University’s Cyber Resilience and Operations Program (CORe). The BSU CORe program was recently named one of the top 10 cyber programs in the US by FORBES Magazine.

David Mitchell, aka digish0, started his hacking career as a script kiddie running 7th Sphere in mIRC in high school. Later falling in with some Linux/RedHat nerds at a local 2600 group at college while studying CS, etc. He got into Linux, started an IT career, later rediscovering his hacking script kiddie roots when a local hacker space opened up and shared members with a lockpicking group that worked in infosec as penetration testers, etc where he discovered he could get paid to do the things he liked doing in high school/college. He now works professionally as a red team member and cyber security researcher at a large financial institution. You can catch him attending and speaking at many conferences like CackalackyCon and BSides, DefCon.The rest of the time he spends being a dad/husband, trying not to get injured in Muay Thai/BJJ or mountain biking, and listening to either very expensive or very cheap vinyl.

Hristo Asenov has about ten years of professional experience, working in both military, academic and private sectors. He completed graduate studies at University of Delaware.

James "Jimmy" Ririe is a recent graduate from Radford University with degrees in cybersecurity and computer science. He was president of Radford's cybersecurity club and leader of its CTF team.

Justin Varner is a seasoned and passionate security professional with over 18 years of experience in the industry across a variety of security domains and disciplines. His career started as a cryptographer at NASA where he spent time redesigning the cryptographic messaging system used to communicate from the mission control center to the International Space Station. During a focused and driven career, he has had the opportunity to work across a multitude of different industries in various roles that have ranged from security architecture to offensive security to DevSecOps and everything in between. His most recent endeavors have been focused on helping others improve their ability to rapidly detect breaches and generally bolster their overall security posture with simple and pragmatic means and methods. Justin embraces any opportunity to teach fundamental security concepts to those who need help but have no idea where to look, and he prides himself on being able to break down and articulate complex topics in a fun, interesting, and engaging manner that appeals to people from all backgrounds.

Kai is a Senior Security Engineer at EY’s Cyber Threat Management team and manages Security Engineering and Applied Machine Learning Research. He holds multiple certifications and has extensive knowledge in various domains, including Web-App Development, Data Science, Incident Response, DevSecOps and Purple Teaming. He is also an advocate for open source software and data privacy. He dreams of a world where no one clicks on phishing e-mails.

Kevin Clark is a Software Developer turned Penetration Tester at TrustedSec. He focuses on initial access and Active Directory exploitation. He contributes to open-source tools such as PowerShell Empire and Metasploit. He also writes his own custom security tools such as Badrats and Ek47. Kevin has a passion for education and volunteers on the Midwest Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (CCDC) red team. He teaches courses with BC-SECURITY at BlackHat and other venues about Evasion, Red Teaming, Empire Operations, and Active Directory. Kevin authors a cybersecurity blog at https://henpeebin.com/kevin/blog. Skyler Knecht is an Information Security Specialist who performs a variety of security assessments including, phishing, internal/external penetration tests and red teaming. Skyler Knecht worked as a consultant for three years and has recently pivoted to an internal team at Navy Federal Credit Union. Skyler Knecht is continually researching all fields of study but is primarily focused developing offensive tooling such as command and control frameworks and implants.

My name is Logan, I'm a Roanoke native and have lived here most of my life. I'm a Senior Offensive Security Consultant with years of penetration testing experience & a lifelong interest in it.

Matt has been involved with all things Security, Open Source and Linux since before they were cool. He's worked with everything from Fortune 100's and Wall Street Fintech firms to a tropical fish wholesaler. When not working tech, hiking or bicycling, he enjoys geeking out with symphonies, prog rock, jazz, bluegrass and whatever else tickles his melodic, harmonic and rhythmic fancy, because it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that certain je ne sais quoi. Matt holds CISSP & CISA certifications and is currently serving as the Vice-President of the Austin chapter of the Information Systems Security Association.

Randy is the Chief Information Security Officer of Virginia Tech and the Director of Virginia Tech's IT Security Laboratory and has 25 years experience as a systems administrator, IT auditor, and security specialist. He is a co-author of the original SANS Top 10 Internet Threats, the SANS Top 20 Internet Threats, the SANS Consensus Roadmap for Defeating DDoS Attacks, and the SANS Incident Response: Step-by-Step guides. Randy is currently a senior instructor for the SANS Institute and has taught a wide variety of courses over the years. Currently, he can be found teaching SEC566: Implementing and Auditing the Critical Security Controls on a regular basis.

Ryan O'Donnell is a Red Team Operator at Altus Consulting. Over the last 12+ years, Ryan has been performing Penetration Tests, Red Team assessments, and Incident Response investigations. Ryan has conducted workshops at Hack Space Con and Bsides Nova. Ryan has a Masters in Computer Forensics from GMU and the following Certifications: OSCP, OSEP, CRTO, GREM, GCFE, GCIH, CRTO.

Schr0ding3r, a B.S. holder in physics and mathematics (with a cybersecurity degree on the horizon!), possesses a boundless curiosity that extends to hacking, programming, philosophy, and even ancient Hebrew.

Skyler Knecht is an Information Security Specialist who performs a variety of security assessments including, phishing, internal/external penetration tests and red teaming. Skyler Knecht worked as a consultant for three years and has recently pivoted to an internal team at Navy Federal Credit Union. Skyler Knecht is continually researching all fields of study but is primarily focused developing offensive tooling such as command and control frameworks and implants.