News and Interviews from BlackHat 2023 – ESW #328

Mickey began his technical career in the Navy. Mickey’s comfort zone is on the front lines, helping organizations thwart and respond to cyberattacks. The long-time cybersecurity expert and entrepreneur has an extensive track record of driving revenue growth and scaling organizations across the globe.

Prior to co-founding Semperis, Mickey held the position of CTO at YouCC Technologies, a Microsoft Gold Partner integration company. As a cybersecurity thought leader, Mickey has been quoted or featured in many major publications, including Forbes, CNBC, and others. He has a B.A. in Technical Management and a Minor in Electronic Engineering.

Theresa Lanowitz is the Chief Cybersecurity Evangelist at LevelBlue, a strategic alliance between AT&T and WillJam Ventures, that simplifies cybersecurity for the businesses fueling our global economy.

With a distinguished career in the technology industry, she has held influential roles at companies including Gartner, Borland, Taligent, and Sun Microsystems, significantly impacting application security and emerging technologies.

Theresa is a globally respected leader known for her deep and diverse experience in cybersecurity. Theresa frequently speaks at major industry conferences, sharing her insights on high tech trends, AI integration, and the evolving threat landscape.

Theresa holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from the University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA.

Building on his PhD in scalable network forensics from UC Berkeley, Matthias Vallentin founded Tenzir. As CEO, he leads Tenzir’s mission to transform security data operations. Matthias has extensive experience in building large-scale distributed systems, which he now applies to developing a data-centric security analytics platform for threat detection and response.

Randy Watkins is the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for Critical Start and an emerging thought-leader in the security industry. As CTO, Randy is responsible for designing and executing the company’s strategic technology initiatives, which includes defining the strategy and direction of Critical Start’s Managed Detection and Response (MDR) services delivered by the Zero-Trust Analytics Platform (ZTAP).

Previously, Randy served as Critical Start’s Director of Security Architecture, where he set the strategy for emerging vendor technologies, created the Defendable Network reference architecture, and set product direction for the company’s internally-developed Security Orchestration Automation and Response platform. Watkins was employee number five when he joined Critical Start in 2012.

Randy is a respected author and speaker on security trends and is well-versed in applying security technologies, in practical and meaningful ways, to improve risk management and security infrastructure for enterprise customers. He holds numerous security certifications in data analysis, data science, computer science, and leadership. Randy earned a bachelor’s degree in Information Systems Security and an associate degree in Computer Networking Systems, both from ITT Technical Institute.

In his free time, Randy continues to contribute to the security community through his consultancy to security product manufacturers to help them drive value to the customer through their solutions.

Richard Yew is Senior Director, Product Management for Edgio Security. With more than 10+ years of security technology experience worldwide, Richard is on top of the latest trends and technologies including WAAP, DDoS protection, bot management and enterprise security. Richard comes to Edgio from Yahoo-Edgecast and, prior to this, he was with Verizon Media Platform for a number of years. Richard also spent a brief time at Akamai before moving back to Verizon Digital Media Services as Head of Product for Security. He has led teams involving technical scope and developed strategic solutions for customers and prospects. He was educated at the Illinois Institute of Technology, and later at DePaul University, rising through a technical and engineering background to a managerial role.

Antonio Sanchez is Principal Evangelist at Fortra. As a subject matter expert for Fortra’s security portfolio, Antonio helps drive market recognition for the Fortra brand. He joined Fortra from Alert Logic in 2023, where he developed the messaging, positioning, and technical content for the managed detection and response (MDR) business. Alert Logic was acquired by Fortra in 2022.

Antonio has over 20 years in the IT industry focusing on cybersecurity, information management, and disaster recovery solutions to help organizations of all sizes manage threats and improve their security posture. He is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP).

Antonio has held various product management, technical sales, and strategic marketing roles with Dell, Forcepoint, and Symantec. At the latter, he was responsible for developing and leading the Competitive Intelligence Program for the core security unit.

Antonio is a life-long learner and skilled at translating complex topics into simple terms. He is also a big supporter of education for underprivileged communities and an active mentor for people from minority groups who are interested in a career in cybersecurity.