Speakers
Illena Armstrong
Illena Armstrong is a long-time international media and business development leader who, with the help of the talented teams she has managed over the years, successfully built and maintained a wide range of award-winning, digitally-driven multimedia, intelligence/research, and educational offerings serving targeted audiences. Along with her current role as President of CSA, she serves as a Fellow with the International Association of Certified ISAOs (IACI) and is Co-Chair of the IACI Global Security Resilience Alliance (GSRA), which serves as the IACI Advisory Board. Additionally, she currently sits on the Board of Advisors for Cybersecurity Ventures, a leading researcher and publisher covering the global cyber economy, and is an Executive Advisory Board Member with the United Cybersecurity Alliance, an organization that offers various educational and skills development programs that promote diversity, inclusion, and equality in the cybersecurity workforce. She also is a member of Chief, a private network designed to support and strengthen women in executive leadership, magnify their influence, and help pave the way for still more powerful women to secure top leadership roles.
Prior to these positions, she was VP of Editorial, at SC Media, a business media brand for the information security industry. While there, she spearheaded and managed all content strategy and development, as well as played a key leadership role in driving the brand’s overall business and commercial growth with the support of team members scattered across the US and UK.
Leveraging years in the cybersecurity industry and her brand-building, digital media, editorial, design, website, marketing/PR, social media, event, and overall business/commercial experience, she has established a multitude of award-winning digital content and editorial offerings, such as virtual events/webcasts, video/podcast programs, physical events, social media channels and traditional hardcopy/digital editions. Working closely with other brand and sales colleagues, she also has created and launched research-based products, single- and multi-tiered custom offerings, awards/recognition programs, and still other product lines.
In addition to being named to Cyber Defense Magazine's "Top 25 Women in Cybersecurity" for 2019 (https://cyberdefenseawards.com/top-25-women-in-cybersecurity/), on her watch, SC won more than 40 awards from such industry groups as the American Society of Business Publication Editors.
Mike Monnik
Mike is founder of DroneSec and has worked previously as a consultant conducting offensive technical cyber and physical security engagements. Mike has led high-performing groups in Red Team, Penetration Testing, Open-Source Intelligence and UAS engagements in a variety of challenging environments. Mike is a long-time conference speaker and advocate for drone security, and has presented at closed-door presentations and training to government, law enforcement and private industry. Mike has experience conducting war rooms and table top exercises for major events.
He has several hall-of-fame contributions within the aviation, NFT and drone space. Specialising in Red Team operations, Mike has used drones in simulations against critical infrastructure, government buildings and private facilities to highlight the potential threats they pose and evaluate their response.
Stephen Mathezer
Armed with over 20 years of experience in various security roles, Stephen is an esteemed security practitioner, boasting expert level knowledge of operating system and network internals enabling him to architect, implement, support and manage a wide variety of security solutions. A strong believer in maximizing existing solutions and capabilities before seeking new technology solutions, Stephen uses all the tools at his disposal to help enterprise customers reduce business risk and improve their security posture.
He gained a strong understanding of real-world security challenges while working in industry and now consulting with a variety of small and large customers. With many additional years of experience performing security assessments and penetration tests, Stephen understands the many ways in which an organization can be compromised and continues to work with customers to enhance their visibility, detect and respond to threats.
Stephen holds many cybersecurity certifications and is currently a SANS Certified Instructor, the leading provider of information security training.
Tim McCreight
Tim is a sought after industry spokesperson and writer, having presented as a keynote speaker at conferences across North America on such diverse topics as Enterprise Security Risk Management (ESRM) and implementing enterprise security programs. He is also a regular columnist for Canadian Security Magazine and co-hosts a podcast on ESRM called "Caffeinated Risk".
He brings over 40 years of experience in the security industry and is recognized as one of North America’s leading Enterprise Security Risk Management (ESRM) evangelists. Tim is the President-Elect 2023 for ASIS International and is the global sponsor for Enterprise Security Risk Management and Digital Transformation at ASIS.
Tim is currently the National Director, Market Development and Strategic Advisory for CGI. Previously, Tim has held executive positions at several organizations, notably as the Managing Director - Enterprise Security for Canadian Pacific Railway, the Acting Chief Security Officer (CSO) for The City of Calgary, the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) for the Government of Alberta, and Director - Enterprise Information Security for Suncor Energy Services Inc.
Tim was awarded his Master of Science in Security and Risk Management (with Merit) from the University of Leicester and attained his CISSP, CPP, and CISA security designations.
Sean Heide
Sean is the Technical Research Director at Cloud Security Alliance whose management spans across areas of Top Threats for cloud, Enterprise Architecture, C-Suite initiatives, and Threat Intelligence. He has over 12 years combined experience in technology and intelligence backgrounds. Having served 8 years as a US Navy Intelligence Analyst, with certifications in Special Warfare Intelligence, Expeditionary Warfare, and Operational Warfare Intelligence, Sean’s love for all things technology slowly transferred to a bachelor’s in information technology, as well as a master’s degree in IT Management w/ specializations in Cyber Security. Recently, Sean’s conference talks and sessions have been on the topic of Leadership in Security as well as hosting multiple threat modeling tabletop exercises within the CSA community.
Aarti Gadhia
Aarti Gadhia is a change maker and has dedicated her entire career to breaking down barriers and boundaries to achieve equality for under-represented groups in STEM and in leadership. She founded Standout To Lead to empower women in cybersecurity to join boards and as a result 30 women have begun their board journey. She also founded SHE (Sharing Her Empowerment) with a mission to be a collective voice and accelerate change.
She is currently working at Tines as a Cybersecurity Sales Professional. Aarti also serves as the Board Director for ObserveID and volunteers her time and serves on the OWASP Vancouver Board and WiCYS Western Canada Affiliate Board.
Aarti was honored for her contribution to the cybersecurity community by being named as one of the Top 20 Women in Cyber Security in Canada. She is a speaker and one of the authors of the book "The Rise of the Cyber Women: Volume Two" as she shared her Safari of experiences as a change agent paving the path for future generations. She was quoted in Canadian Security Magazine as she shared her views on the importance of soft skills to break down barriers in traditional hiring.
Due to her international background, she loves to travel and learn different cultures. If you’ve seen her post on LinkedIn titled Phulka Roti, you’ll know that she enjoys cooking.
Sherifat Akinwonmi
Sherifat is an Information security (Cyber Security) professional with diverse work experience and skills which cuts across the Pharmaceuticals, Financial and IT services industries. She holds a master’s degree in Information Security Management with a distinction at University of Salford, Greater Manchester UK. She possesses several professional qualifications in Information Technology and Security including Certified Chief Information Security Officer (CCISO), CISSP, ISO 27001 LA, CISM, CISA, PRINCE2, ITIL and Microsoft Azure.
Adam Doherty
Automator of things, mechanical keyboard enthusiast, and most likely to keep the coffee industry afloat; Adam has been working in IT for over 20 years in various sectors. He is very passionate about making security accessible to anyone old enough to have used VHS tapes, and pay phones. He also spends his time thinking about why the local power, water, and gas utilities need to be accessible from anywhere.
Akshar Tank
Akshar is a highly skilled security engineer, with expertise in Application security. He is an expert in source code review of different tech stacks, pentesting all kinds of applications, and improving the Cloud security of organizations. With this, he is active in bug bounties and is currently at level 4 in Synack red team. Moreover, he has helped numerous companies to improve their security posture, who were belonging in areas such as Banking, E-Commerce, Crypto exchanges, Education, and many such.
Andrew Campbell
Andrew Campbell is a instructor at SAIT in the field of Cyber Security for the last 5 years. He has recently moved to the Information Systems Security Program at SAIT and is teaching Networking and Protocol Security in the Fall.
Andrew is passionate about Cyber Security and spends a lot of my time studying and building his skills.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewwilliamcampbell/
Hack Flow Security Tool: https://shabbyporpoise.com
Brian Contos
With two IPOs & eight acquisitions Brian has helped build some of the most successful security companies in the world. He has over 25 years in the security industry as security company entrepreneur, board advisor, investor, and author. After getting his start with the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) and later Bell Labs, Brian began the process of building security startups and taking multiple companies through successful IPOs and acquisitions including: Riptech, ArcSight, Imperva, McAfee, Solera Networks, Cylance, JASK, Verodin, and Mandiant.
Brian has worked in over 50 countries across six continents. He authored the book Enemy at the Water Cooler and he co-authored Physical & Logical Security Convergence with former NSA Deputy Director William Crowell. He was featured in the cyberwar documentary 5 EYes alongside General Michael Hayden, former NSA and CIA Director. Brian has written for and been interviewed by security and business press and regularly presents at conferences worldwide like Black Hat, RSA, & BSides.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/briancontos/
https://twitter.com/BrianContos
Bryan Davies
Career highlights include playing a hockey game with Zarley Zalapsky, creating a computer vision system to perform visual quality control on an assembly line for Nortel office phones, Halliburton Canada’s bid management system, and industry leading oil and gas compliance software focused on the end of life of assets.
I currently work for Splunk as a senior sales engineer. If you need a Splunk t-shirt let me know!
Farshad Abasi
Farshad Abasi is an innovative technologist with over twenty four years of experience in software design and development, network and system architecture, cybersecurity, management, and technical instruction. With a keen interest in security from the start, he has become an expert in that aspect of computing and communication over the last twenty years. He started Forward Security in 2018, with a mission to provide world class information security services, particularly in the Application and Cloud security domains. Prior to creating Forward, he was a senior member of HSBC Group's IT Security team with the most recent positions being the Principal Global Security Architect, and Head of IT Security of the Canadian division. Farshad is continuing an eighteen year stint as an instructor at BCIT where he shares his passion for information and network security, helping others build a career in this exciting field. He is also the security correspondent for CFAX radio, BSides Vancouver/MARS board member, Vancouver OWASP chapter lead, a CISSP designate, and a UBC CS alumnus.
Hank Fordham
Hank Fordham is an experienced ethical hacker and instructor with a demonstrated history of working in the cyber security industry, he is currently searching for employment after working with S01ve Cyber solutions as a Senior Cyber Security Specialist and ReTrain Canada as a Cyber Security Instructor for 2.5 years.
Boasting over 15 years of autodidactic study in the world of hacking and cyber security Hank appreciates the importance of self study. While also being internationally recognized within the world of the 'Hacker' for his research, Hank Fordham has appeared in numerous speaking engagements, keynotes, TV Shows and is most notable for his cyber security research in various media releases.
With the main goal of cybersecurity and public safety in mind, my current areas of study include Artificial Intelligence, Biocomputational Engineering, Neurorobotics, Biohacking and more.
Harshit Agrawal
Harshit Agrawal (@harshitnic) is currently working as a RF Security Researcher at Boston University, and Chair for Media & Technology at IEEE Computer Society - Cybersecurity STC. He is enthusiastic about SIGINT, Drone Pentesting, Telecom Security, and IoT Security. He presented his research at International Security conferences like Defcon USA, RSAC USA, Cyberweek UAE, HITB Amsterdam, Hack Summit Poland, Nanosec Malaysia, etc. Previously, he was President of the CSI Chapter and Vice President for the Entrepreneurship cell at MIT, where he also headed the team of security enthusiasts, giving him a good insight into cybersecurity and increasing his thirst to explore more in this field. He is a student, developer, programmer, and researcher, he believes in providing something out of the box!
Iman Sharafaldin
Iman is an Application Security Lead at Forward Security who is passionate about all things code. He has more than 8 years of cybersecurity and software related experience and is also a PhD candidate in Computer Science with more than 1000 citations on his cybersecurity related publications in top journals and conferences. In his spare time, he researches and invests in crypto and blockchain technologies.
Jared Meit
Jared Meit, OSWE, has always had a passion for taking things apart, learning how they work, and forgetting how to put them back together. He was a professional software developer for 12 years before shifting his focus to Application Security 5 years ago. His dev experience allows him to create tools that developer's will actually want to use.
Jason Maynard
Jason Maynard has been architecting, designing, and deploying security technologies that secure the most complex computing environments for almost 20 Years. His understanding of technologies, people, and process enable him to deliver effective, comprehensive security solutions that align to an organizations security goals and strategic imperatives. Jason is adept at addressing a range of risk profiles across industry verticals; skills he has cultivated as an end-user security practitioner, integrator, and now manufacturer as Senior Technical Solutions Architect, Cybersecurity for Cisco Systems. Jason is also active in the direct community speaking at BC Aware, Privacy and Security Conference, and has delivered multiple sessions at BSides. Jason also holds over 75+ designations across a variety of products and technologies including the CCIE designation.
Lubos Kuzma
Lubos Kuzma is a faculty member at Southern Alberta Institute of Technology in the Information Systems Security program. Over the last several years, he has been focusing on the improvement of educational techniques and outcomes, within cybersecurity and other technology-related topics.
Michael Spaling
Michael Spaling leads a team of professionals involved in a wide variety of IT Security work for one of Canada's top Universities. He has presented on various security topics at a wide range of conferences and events including ISACA, CANHEIT, Edmonton Expo, BSides Calgary, BSides Edmonton and BSides Las Vegas. Michael is also a Sessional Instructor teaching an advanced network security course in the Master of Science in Internetworking program at the University of Alberta.
Mike Carlson
Mike is a former petroleum engineering that finished a diploma in Information System Security in early 2019. He is currently working in a SOC as a Reporting Analyst. He has experience in evaluating phishing emails, network access control, security reports and scripting. Previous petroleum work concentrated on economic evaluation, numerical modelling of petroleum reservoirs and included being a Unix workstation Value Added Retailer for Silicon Graphics/MIPS.
Mrigakshi Goel
Mrigakshi is passionate about speaking for cybersecurity and following best practices to create a cybersafe world. She is currently working at Finning International as an Information Security Engineer and has worked in Application Security at Optiv, Bugcrowd and Accenture in the past. With about 8 years in the IT industry and Masters' in Cybersecurity, she is here to present privilege escalation methods on windows systems. She believes that while the OWASP top 10 is focused on shifting left, understanding the attack surface and the attacker’s way of thinking is very important to understand.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrigakshi-goel-19b6051a
Twitter:@mrigakshigoel
Harsh Modi
Harsh is an offensive security professional, whose experience is diversified with various aspects of penetration testing such as Web, Mobile, Network, IoT, Infrastructure. He has found various bugs and received hall of fame or bounties on platforms like Bugcrowd and Hackerone. Currently he is a Director at Confidential and he will be soon becoming an entrepreneur. Moreover, he is among top 20 in Canada on platforms like Hackthebox and Tryhackme. He has won several CTF events and had mentored/guided around 15 beginners in the field of cybersecurity.
He has done various pentesting projects with financial and e-commerce sectors. Harsh will be delivering the talk on Privilege Escalation in popular Operating Systems such as Windows and Linux. He has spoken previously at Owasp, Appsec and Null conferences respectively.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/harsh-modi-5b9b75102
Twitter: @hkmi878
Nurudeen Odeshina
Nurudeen Odeshina journeys through life, trying to improve what living means to others. Nurudeen is currently supporting efforts to create equal access to economic opportunities through the building blocks; through current knowledge of cybersecurity, privacy, and data protection.
Parul Khanna
Parul Khanna is working as a senior consultant in the field of information risk management with background in incident response, cybersecurity investigations and software engineering. She has a Masters degree in Information System Security Management from Canadian University and holds CISSP, CCSP, CISM, CRISC, CDPSE and CCSK designations. Previously, Parul has worked as a core team member of Cybersecurity Operations Centre at one of Canada’s Big 5 bank. She is a recognized subject matter expert on risk assessments, security control improvements and security solutions. In addition to her professional career, Parul has published a research paper on Doxing at an International Conference on Information Security, Privacy and Forensics held in Montreal. She also serves as a board member for the (ISC)2 Toronto Chapter.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/parul-k/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187705091631821X
Peter Morin
Peter leverages over 25 years of experience to help clients develop robust Cybersecurity program strategies. This includes advising organizations in areas ranging from industrial and control system (ICS) security, network security architecture, threat hunting and red-teaming to cloud security, incident response, computer forensics and beyond. Throughout Peter’s career, he has held senior positions with numerous organizations, including a global Cybersecurity consulting firm, a national telecommunications and media company, a Fortune 500 cloud-computing company, a recognized Cybersecurity software company and a major US defense contractor. Peter has had the opportunity to work across industries, including in the critical infrastructure including energy and water, mining and industrial sectors as well as government, aerospace and military.
As a public speaker, Peter has presented at numerous events held by the FBI, US Department of Homeland Security, Conference Board of Canada, FIRST, BSides, SecTor, SANS, Blackhat, Public Safety Canada, IIA and ISACA. Peter is also a frequent guest lecturer at colleges and universities across North America, and have been featured in such publications as SC Magazine, USA Today, National Post and Penetration Testing Magazine. Peter currently serves on the board of directors for the ISACA Atlantic Provinces Chapter. Peter received the ISACA Global Outstanding Leader Award in 2020 for his contributions to the association and his chapter.
Prashant Prashant
Prashant has a Bachelors and Masters in IT from India and 14 years of Canadian IT experience in various industry verticals. He works as a Senior Cyber Security Advisor for a Fortune 500. He calls himself a geek with a purpose and likes to support the budding talent, share his experience and continue to progress the Cyber Security discipline. He considers himself a problem solver to solve interesting IT problems not just Cyber Security. He likes to play chess, hike and camp in the mountains alone and ponder over the purpose of life and nature.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/prashantprofile/
Twitter: @prashant_geek
Rob Slade
Rob Slade is an information security and management consultant from North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. (Or he may be an AI experiment gone horribly wrong, and hooked up to various email addresses.) He has consulted for Fortune 100 companies, has taught on six continents, gets calls from intellectual property lawyers, is frequently published in the Information Security Management Handbook, and authored "Robert Slade Guide to Computer Viruses," "Software Forensics," "Dictionary of Information Security," "Cybersecurity Lessons from CoVID-19," and two thirds of "Viruses Revealed." He got his start in security researching viruses. More information than anyone would want to know about him is available at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Slade
https://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/search?query=slade
https://shouldersofinfosec.pbworks.com/w/page/146046189/Rob%20Slade%20%20%28Slade%2C%20Robert%29
https://community.isc2.org/t5/forums/recentpostspage/user-id/1324864413
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUuvftvRsRv4bMs_scU3TyBZzuvW7kpZi
Shamir Charania
Shamir Charania is a Microsoft Azure MVP, with extensive experience building solutions in the cloud, ranging from strategy, to deployment, to automation. He is the Chief Product Officer at Daturic, a company focusing on securing public cloud data lakes at scale.
Sushil Madhukar
Sushil brings over years of diverse experience in a different role of Cyber Security. He is Chief Principal - Global customer Success and Canada operation in his current role at TechDemocracy.
He is an ambitious cybersecurity evangelist and leader who creates strategy with internal and external stakeholders and leadership to effectively align with and support key Cyber Security initiatives and engagements. His strong leadership skills with the ability to provide vision and direction in any of complex, fast-paced and diverse organization are unique for business.
His previous and current experience also includes Identity and access management solution advisory, cyber security services Delivery management, Security Program management across different geographies like India, USA, UK and Canada.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sushilmadhukar/
Twitter: @MadhukarSushil
Tareq AlKhatib
Tareq is a Senior Security Consultant with over 15 years of experience in cyber security. His main areas of focus are Detections Engineering and Security Automation. He is also a security blogger and a patent holder.
Tina Petersen
While Tara grew up in Construction, she is an IT person at heart. She feels truly fortunate to be enjoying a career that has spanned many interesting disciplines including Movies, Oil & Gas, Robotics, Application Testing, Construction, and more. Prior to the pandemic, she also volunteered with Special Needs Persons and helped with service animals. Currently, she works with the fascinating, talented team at Mirai Security Inc.
She holds First Place awards from Toastmasters in Speech Competitions and have spent many years teaching industry professionals the foundations of Project Management, Agile Methodology and Six Sigma.
Vincent Chiew
Dr. Vincent Chiew, Ph.D.,MACM, SMIEEE, ITIL, CISSP, CSSLP, PMP, P.Eng., FEC, FGC (Hon.)
Vincent Chiew is a founder and past president of (ISC)2 Alberta. He holds both CISSP and CSSLP designations, including other professional designations. His company, axiscognisolve.com, is (ISC)2 Official Training Provider (OTP), and Vincent is (ISC)2 Official Trainer. He has legislated and regulated experience working on various boards and committees such as security, IT, project management, and engineering in capacities such as past chair, past president, and past executives. He is currently trying to champion the legislation of self-regulation for all information and cyber security professionals, under the umbrella of critical infrastructure protection and cyber security.
Vivek Ponnada
Vivek Ponnada is an OT practitioner with global (14 countries) experience and currently works at Nozomi Networks as a Regional Sales Director. Having started his career in ICS as an Instrumentation Technician, Vivek became a Controls Engineer and commissioned Gas Turbine Controls systems in Europe, Middle-East, Africa and South-East Asia. Throughout his career, Vivek held multiple roles including Sales, Marketing & Business Development and Services covering Control systems & Cybersecurity solutions for Critical Infrastructure (Power, Oil & Gas, Water, Mining etc.) industries at GE and ICI Electrical Engineering in North America. He is the co-lead for the Top 20 Secure PLC Coding Practices Project and his recent talks/contributions include S4x22, Gartner Risk Summit, GRIMMCon 0x7, BSides Vancouver and many others. Vivek has a Bachelors Degree in Electrical Engineering from I.E. India, MBA from The University of Texas at Austin and GICSP certification from GIAC. He is an active member of the Infosec community as a Board Member for Mainland Advanced Research Society (Vancouver, BC), member of the ISA and also a Volunteer for ISACA.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/1ot
Twitter: @ControlsCyber
Kurt Hundeck
Kurt is a seasoned cybersecurity professional with twenty years of experience developing and securing software systems. He has attended many security conferences (DEFCON, Blackhat, HOPE) and is continuously learning. Kurt is eager to see your code and to help you navigate the complex topic of Application Security (Designations & Certifications: CISSP, GCSA)