NorthSec 2025

Aditi Bhatnagar is the founder of Offgrid Security - the company offering state-of-the-art AI solutions to up-level product security. Her interest lies in AI security, Android Privacy Posture and Web Application security. She has previously worked as a Lead Security Engineer at Atlassian building security into cloud, Core Engineer building features for end point security products and Data Scientist working on cutting edge AI algorithms at Microsoft.
She has previously presented at dozens of international conferences including RSAC, May Contains Hackers, Diana Initiative, Android Security Symposium, Nullcon amidst others.
Through her initiative, Infinite Hacks, she is spreading cyber awareness. She has conducted trainings and initiated discussions on LLM security, digital rights, and techno-sociology. She’s an avid blogger and publishes posts on cybersecurity, ethical hacking, and several aspects of the evolving relationship between humans and technology on her website.

Amaury-Jacques Garçon is a cybersecurity engineer working as technical Threat Intelligence analyst and focusing on the investigation of state-sponsored threats, currently at Sekoia.io . With professional experience in open source investigation, he has worked for the French Ministry of Armed Forces.

Antonis Terefos is a malware reverse engineer at Check Point Research with experience in the cyber threat landscape. He specializes in dissecting and analyzing malicious software to uncover hidden threats within the ever-evolving cyber threat landscape. In addition to his professional work, Antonis enjoys testing malware command-and-control (C2) infrastructures in his spare time. By exploring these C2 systems, he gains valuable insights into the strategies and tactics employed by threat actors, enriching his overall understanding of the adversarial landscape.

Aryan is a security researcher with over 4+ years of experience. He’s a full time malware researcher and loves to evade AV and EDRs. His research interests are not just limited to Windows, but he even develops low level code for *nix systems. Even though his expertise lies in the domain of malware development and reversing, he also dabbles in the domain of red teaming. With his experience in low level programming, he also curates and develops toolkits extensively used for red team engagements. He has presented sessions at WildWest Hackin Fest, The Hack Summit, Carolina Con 4 and BSides Ahmedabad. With his CRTO certification in tow, he has led and participated in numerous red team engagements with strong defense mechanisms.

Axelle Apvrille is a Principal Security Researcher at Fortinet, Fortiguard Labs. Her research interests are mobile and IoT malware that she reverses every day. In addition, she is the lead organizer of Ph0wn CTF, an on-site competition which focuses on ethical hacking of smart objects.
In a prior life, Axelle used to implement cryptographic algorithms and security protocols.

Axelle has spoken at many conferences such as Black Hat Europe, Confidence, Hack.Lu, Hacktivity, Insomni'hack, ShmooCon, Troopers, Virus Bulletin... NorthSec 2021 ;-) She has also published in academic journals such as IEEE Security & Privacy, or Journal in Computer Virology. She regularly writes in the French magazine MISC and Hackable, and has recently published in Phrack #71.

Co-founder at cybercitoyen.org - an organization dedicated to making cybersecurity accessible to everyone to promote digital literacy and contribute to shaping cyber citizens who are alert, engaged, and proactive in protecting their personal information. Teacher at Polytechnique Montréal.

Charles Hamilton is a Red Teamer with over twelve years of experience delivering offensive testing services for various government clients and commercial sectors. In recent years, Charles has specialized in covert Red Team operations targeting complex and highly secured environments. These operations have enabled him to refine his skills in stealthily navigating client networks without detection.

Since 2014, he has been the founder of the RingZer0 Team website, a platform dedicated to teaching hacking fundamentals. The RingZer0 community currently boasts over 50,000 members worldwide. Charles is also a prolific toolsmith and trainer who has delivered training over the last seven years, both online and onsite. He is a speaker in the InfoSec industry, known under the handle Mr.Un1k0d3r

tChetanya Kunndra is a security researcher with over 3+ years of experience. His major area of expertise lies within the domain of pentesting and red teaming. Apart from red teaming, he has a knack for developing automation toolkits. He often dabbles with malware development and reverse engineering. With this knowledge he has been successfully able to evade sophisticated defenses in numerous red teaming exercises. He has published several researches in the domain of application of artificial intelligence in cyber security. He has presented sessions at WildWest Hackin Fest, The Hack Summit, Carolina Con 4 and BSides Ahmedabad. He has received his Masters of Technology in the domain of Cyber Security and also holds the CRTO certification.

Chirag Savla is a cyber security professional with 9+ years of experience. His areas of interest include penetration testing, red teaming, azure and active directory security, and post-exploitation research. For fun, he enjoys creating open-source tools and exploring new attack methodologies in his leisure. Chirag has worked extensively on Azure, Active Directory attacks and defense, and bypassing detection mechanisms. He is the author of multiple open source tools such as Process Injection, Callidus, and others. He has presented at many conferences and local meetups and has trained people in international conferences like Blackhat, BSides Milano, Wild West Hackin’ Fest, HackSpaceCon and VulnCon.

Christian is a security specialist in the Microsoft Research Cryptography team with a mission to bridge the gap between academic research and real-world systems. With 25 years of experience, Christian has been involved in many industry-wide initiatives such as the development of privacy enhancing identity technologies (such as anonymous credentials), the ongoing post-quantum cryptographic migration, and the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA) to fight online disinformation. Christian shares some of his work results on his blog: https://christianpaquin.github.io

Cindy Xiao is a security researcher who works primarily on malware reverse engineering, in support of cyber threat intelligence reporting. Cindy enjoys learning from other security practitioners (both offensive and defensive), developing tools to help with analysis, and mentoring others.

Corinne Pulgar brings a unique blend of technical expertise and social awareness to the field of digital security. With a Master's in Software Engineering from École de Technologie Supérieure (ETS) and a Bachelor's in Computer Science from Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), they possess a deep understanding of software development and security. They have shown a steadfast commitment to education through their contributions as a project manager and InfoSec at Lab2038 and a teaching assistant and lecturer at multiple institutions, including McGill University, ETS and UQAM. Their ability to translate complex technical concepts into accessible knowledge has made them a sought-after lecturer and mentor.

Corinne’s research, presented at conferences and published in journals, focuses on model-driven software engineering and DevOps, demonstrating their innovative approach to software development. Their work at the intersection of technology and inclusivity reflects their dedication to leveraging their technical expertise for social good, specifically in enhancing digital privacy and security for vulnerable groups. Their unique perspective, combining technical acumen with a passion for social impact, makes them an ideal speaker to address the critical issue of digital privacy in the context of IPV.

Prof. David Décary-Hétu has a Ph.D. in criminology from the Université de Montréal (2013). He first started as a Senior Scientist at the School of Criminal Sciences of the Université de Lausanne before moving to his current position as an Associate Professor at the School of Criminology of the Université de Montréal. The main research interests of Prof. Décary-Hétu focus on the impacts of technology on crime. Through his innovative approach based on big and small data, as well as social network analysis, Prof. Décary-Hétu studies how offenders adopt and use technologies, and how that shapes the regulation of offenses, as well as how researchers can study offenders and offenses. Prof. Décary-Hétu is the Deputy Director of the International Centre for Comparative Criminology (ICCC), the Chair of the Division of Cybercrime of the American Society of Criminology and the Chair of the Darknet and Anonymity Research Centre (DARC) that was funded by the John R. Evans Leaders Funds from the Canada Foundation for Innovation. His team collects and studies data from all types of offenders who use anonymity technologies such as the darkweb, cryptocurrencies and encryption. Prof. Décary-Hétu has received funding from both public and private grantors operating at the local, provincial, federal and international level. He has published in leading academic journals and is invited regularly in the news media to comment on recent events.

Experienced cybersecurity professional with experience in Penetration Testing across Web, API, Network, and Mobile platforms, coupled with 7 years as a versatile Test Engineer & QA.
Known for independently identifying and exploiting vulnerabilities to fortify organizational security, and backed by 8 years of Project Management expertise.

Skilled in simulating real-world attacks, conducting comprehensive security assessments, and providing actionable insights to enhance defenses. Certified in Covert Access, Physical Audit, and Elicitation Toolbox from the Covert Access Team, with demonstrated proficiency in physical penetration testing and security audits. Actively pursuing advanced Red Teaming training, dedicating personal time to mastering adversarial tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs). Eager to combine my Penetration Testing knowledge, physical security capabilities, and evolving Red Teaming skills to contribute to a team focused on proactive threat emulation and defense enhancement.

Recognized for a strong investigative mindset, meticulous attention to detail, and exceptional communication skills, ensuring assignments are completed with confidence and precision. Praised by colleagues as 'the glue that holds the team together,' I bring kindness and support to every endeavor.

Additionally, a published author of cybersecurity and offensive security articles, featured in HVCK and Top Cyber News Magazine. Creator of the preface to the upcoming book, "INTRODUCTION TO RED OPERATIONS 2.0 - A Basic Guide for Your Red Team Operations," authored by Joas A. Santos, and a technical reviewer for the upcoming "Hacking Mainframes: Dispelling the Myth of the Impenetrable Fortress" book authored by Kevin Milne.

Honored with the Cyber Woman Hope Award by CEFCYS and recognized among the "40 under 40" in Cybersecurity 2023 by Top Cyber News Magazine. As a keynote speaker, I've presented at FIC EUROPE 2023 and 2024, WGU 2024, BSIDES Kraków 2024, DEFCON Warsaw Meetup dc4822 2024, Virtual CON 2023, and The Hack Summit 2023.

I am an avid cyclist, archer, and guitar player.

Estelle is a Threat Intelligence Researcher at Flare. With a background in Mathematics and Criminology, Estelle lost her way into cybercrime and is now playing with lines of codes to help computers make sense of the cyber threat landscape. Estelle presented at conferences like ShmooCon 2025, Hack.lu 2024, eCrime APWG 2024 in Boston and the 23rd Annual European Society of Criminology Conference (EUROCRIM 2023) in Florence.

Félix is a Senior Application Security Engineer at Okta Inc.
With an interest in cryptography, he has been reviewing, in his free time, the implementation of cryptographic functions.

François Labrèche is a Senior Data Scientist at Sophos, who focuses on applying machine learning approaches to research problems related to security alerts and vulnerabilities. He focuses on using machine learning to improve the prioritization of alerts and vulnerabilities, in the context of XDR and vulnerability management. He explores the use of OSINT sources and the dark web in assessing the importance of newly published vulnerabilities.

He has a Ph.D. from École Polytechnique de Montréal, and has published research papers on the topics of spam detection, malware analysis, threat research and machine learning applied to cybersecurity. He has presented at ACSAC 2024, CAMLIS 2022, BSides Montreal 2021, University College London and École Polytechnique de Montréal, and has published papers in conferences such as the ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS).

François is a Senior Product Security Engineer for BoostSecurity, where he leads the Supply Chain research team. With over 10 years of experience in building AppSec programs for large corporations (such as Intel) and small startups he has been in the heat of the action as the DevSecOps movement took shape. François is one of founders of NorthSec and was a challenge designer for the NorthSec CTF.

Most recognized for creating Metasploit

HD Moore is a pioneer of the cybersecurity industry who has dedicated his career to vulnerability research, network discovery, and software development since the 1990s. He is most recognized for creating Metasploit and is a passionate advocate for open-source software and vulnerability disclosure.

HD serves as the CEO and co-founder of runZero, a provider of cutting-edge cyber asset management software and cloud services. Prior to founding runZero, he held leadership positions at Atredis Partners, Rapid7, and BreakingPoint. HD has also been a frequent speaker at industry events such as Black Hat and DEF CON.

HD’s professional journey began with exploring telephone networks, developing exploits for the Department of Defense, and hacking into financial institution networks. When he’s not working, he enjoys hacking on weird Go projects, building janky electronics, running in circles, and playing single-player RPGs.

Ignacio Navarro, an Ethical Hacker and Security Researcher from Cordoba, Argentina. With around 6 years in the cybersecurity game, he's currently working as an Application Security. Their interests include code analysis, web application security, and cloud security.
Speaker at DEFCON, H2HC, Troopers, LeHACK, NorthSec, TyphoonCon, Security Fest, SASCON, 8.8 among others.
@Ignavarro1

Jake Mayhew is an experienced information security professional who currently serves as the technical lead for the offensive security team at UPMC. Before serving on an internal red team, he spent several years in consulting delivering security tests for clients in finance, healthcare, retail, critical infrastructure/nuclear energy, and law. He holds the OSCE3 (OSED, OSWE, OSEP), OSCP, CRTO, and OSDA certifications and loves to assist others in their cybersecurity learning path. Jake is one of the founding members of Applied Technology Academy's Asymmetric Training Group (ATG), and has a passion for sharing real-world knowledge and cutting-edge solutions with his students. Jake has led & co-led offensive security trainings including the PEN-200 OSCP training at BlackHat USA.

Jeremy has spent the last decade helping individuals and organizations improve their cybersecurity skills, mindset, and understanding. Prior to jumping into penetration testing, Jeremy was a martial arts instructor and a philosophy student. Both disciplines continue to deeply influence his unique perspective on teaching and learning cybersecurity. Jeremy currently serves as Sr. Manager of Content Strategy and Development at OffSec (formerly Offensive Security).

Jessa Gegax is an Information Security Testing Analyst at Surescripts LLC in Minneapolis, MN. Jessa holds an undergraduate degree in Computer Science and minor in Environment and Natural Resources with research interests in offensive cloud security, IoT devices, and web application/API penetration testing. In their free time, Jessa likes to go backpacking, practice yoga, and spend time with their dog (in no particular order).

Joey is the lead of a detection engineering team at the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security. With a focus on Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTP) analytics, he brings a decade of experience in blue-team roles to his position. He enjoys tackling high-profile cybersecurity events, such as his recent deployments to Latvia, where he supported the Canadian Armed Forces' Operation REASSURANCE in securing NATO's eastern front.

As the coach for Team Canada in CTF (CyberSci), he has enabled the team to win gold medals in the guest category at the European Cybersecurity Challenge (ECSC) for the past three consecutive years. He is also proud to deliver challenges for his fifth consecutive NorthSec CTF as a volunteer for the non-profit.

Jonathan is part of NorthSec as a CTF challenge designer. He is passionate about Application Security and enjoys architecture analysis, code review, threat modeling and debunking security tools. Jonathan holds a bachelor's degree in Software Engineering from ETS Montreal and has 20+ years of experience in Information Technology and Security.

Full-time Bug Bounty Hunter | Host of Critical Thinking Bug Bounty Podcast | Advisor @ Cadio | 3x Live Hacking Event MVH

Marc-andre Labonte was a system administrator for more than a decade at the McGill Genome Center while it was known as the McGill University and Genome Quebec Innovation Center. There, he took part in the design, deployment, operation and maintenance of the data center as it went through multiple upgrade cycles to accommodate ever powerful high throughput genome sequencers coming to market.

Then, he joined the ETTIC team at Desjardins in 2016 as infrastructure penetration tester. Currently doing vulnerability research on IOT devices, he also presented "Automated contact tracing experiment on ESP Vroom32" workshop at NSEC in 2021. His work is motivated by curiosity and a strong sense of personal privacy in a world of connected devices and data hungry organizations.

Matthieu Faou is a senior malware researcher at ESET where he specializes in researching targeted attacks. His main duties include threat hunting and reverse engineering of APTs. He finished his Master’s degree in computer science at École Polytechnique de Montréal and at École des Mines de Nancy in 2016. In the past, he has spoken at multiple conferences including Black Hat USA, BlueHat, Botconf, CYBERWARCON, NorthSec and Virus Bulletin.

Michael Joyce is the Executive Director of the Human-Centric Cybersecurity Partnership (https://hc2p.ca), a transdisciplinary group of scholars, government, industry, and not-for-profit partners working to generate research and mobilize knowledge that fosters a safer, more secure, democratic, and inclusive digital society. He has over a decade of experience in the development and management of national and international cybercrime and cybersecurity knowledge mobilization programs, including Canada’s Smart Cybersecurity Network (https://serene-risc.ca).

He is also a doctoral candidate in criminology at the University of Montreal's Cybercrime Prevention Laboratory (https://www.prevention-cybercrime.ca/), where he researches personal guardianship behaviors and related interventions. Put simply, he wants to understand why people click on things they later regret—and whether we can do anything about it.
Michael is the host of the long-running Cybercrimeology podcast (https://cybercrimeology.com), which explores cybercrime science and research.

He has been a volunteer at NorthSec since well before the pandemic.

Patrick is a cybersecurity and technology leader with over 15 years of experience in financial services and tech. He has managed complex security infrastructures, led global cryptographic operations, and pursued advanced research in quantum cryptography and AI. His hands-on expertise is demonstrated through active participation in CTF competitions, quantum computing hackathons, and his recent role as a badge team and challenge designer at NSEC. Merging practical hardware hacking knowledge with comprehensive cryptographic practices, Patrick continues to redefine the frontiers of cybersecurity, sharing insights that illuminate the practical application of security principles within hardware environments.

Pierre-Nicolas Allard-Coutu is a senior penetration tester and offensive security R&D lead at Bell Canada's Security Testing and Incident Response team (STIRT). He is a seasoned red team operator with many years of experience specialized in the development of malware payloads and payload delivery systems. More recently, he has spearheaded the creation of physical penetration test methodologies including novel exploitation techniques aimed at compromising UEFI pre-boot environments and enabling Direct Memory Access vectors against modern laptops. He is currently the top public contributor to the Quebec Government Cyber Defense Center's vulnerability disclosure program, and part of the HackFest Challenge design team. The type of person who could never resist placing ">alert(1);<!-- in his bio.

Raunak Parmar works as a senior cloud security engineer at White Knight Labs. His areas of interest include web penetration testing, Azure/AWS security, source code review, scripting, and development. He has 4+ years of experience in information security. He enjoys researching new attack methodologies and creating open-source tools that can be used during cloud red team activities. He has worked extensively on Azure and AWS and is the author of Vajra, an offensive cloud security tool. He has spoken at multiple respected security conferences like Black Hat, Defcon RTV, MCTTP, HackSpaceCon, RootCon, and also at local meetups.

Ron Bowes is a Principle Security Researcher on the GreyNoise Labs team, which tracks and investigates unusual--typically malicious--internet traffic. His primary role is to understand and track the big vulnerabilities of the day/week/month/year; often, that means parsing vague vendor advisories, diff'ing patches, reconstructing attacks from log files, and--most complex of all--installing and configuring enterprise software. When he's not at work, he runs the BSides San Francisco Capture the Flag contest, is a founder of The Long Con conference in Winnipeg, takes improv classes, and continues his project to finish every game in his Steam library.

Former Police Officer from Argentina, now a Cloud Incident Responder and Security Engineer with over 10 years of IT experience. A Digital Nomad an international speaker, I've presented on Cloud Security and Incident Response at Ekoparty, FIRST, Virus Bulletin (three times), Hack.Lu, and various BSides events worldwide. I hold a Bachelor's degree in Information Security and an MBA (Master in Business Administration).

Tammy is a Senior Threat Intelligence Researcher and Certified Dark Web Investigator at Flare. She is a contributor and volunteer threat intelligence researcher for the open-source project RansomLook. When not working on threat intelligence, she listens to techno and ambient music. Her other hobbies include street and nature photography, reading, camping, hiking, and learning about theoretical astrophysics, hypothetical stars, and exotic forms of matter.

Teruki Yoshikawa is a security analyst at NTT Security Holdings. He is responsible for monitoring NW/EDR alerts, while also being involved in malware analysis and development of in-house systems. He is currently interested in Red Teaming, particularly in Windows environments. He has been a speaker at JSAC.​

Tod Beardsley is VP of Security Research at runZero, where he "kicks assets and fakes frames." Prior to 2025, he was the Section Chief for the Vulnerability Response section for CSD/VM/VRC at CISA, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, part of the US government. He's also a founder and CNA point of contact for AHA!. He spends much of his time involved in vulnerability research and coordinated vulnerability disclosure (CVD). He has over 30 years of hands-on security experience, stretching from in-band telephony switching to modern ICS/OT implementations. He has held IT ops, security, software engineering, and management positions in large organizations such as the Rapid7, 3Com, Dell, and Westinghouse, as both an offensive and defensive practitioner. Tod is a CVE Board member, has authored several research papers, and hosted Rapid7's Security Nation podcast with Jen Ellis. He is also a Travis County Election Judge in Texas, and is an internationally-tolerated horror fiction expert.

Wendy Nather is the Senior Research Initiatives Director at 1Password. She was previously Director of Advisory CISOs at Duo Security, and Research Director at the Retail ISAC, where she was responsible for advancing the state of resources and knowledge to help organizations defend their infrastructure from attackers. Wendy was also Research Director of the Information Security Practice at independent analyst firm 451 Research, covering the security industry in areas such as application security, threat intelligence, security services, and other emerging technologies. Wendy has served as a CISO in both the private and public sectors. She led IT security for the EMEA region of the investment banking division of Swiss Bank Corporation (now UBS), as well as for the Texas Education Agency. Wendy is co-author of The Cloud Security Rules, as well as Splunk’s Bluenomicon. She was listed as one of SC Magazine’s Women in IT Security “Power Players” in 2014, and an “Influencer” in the Reboot Leadership Awards in 2018; she was inducted into the Infosecurity Europe Hall of Fame in 2021. She serves on the board of directors for Sightline Security, an organization that helps provide free security assessment services to nonprofit groups. Wendy is a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Cyber Statecraft Initiative, and a steering committee member for the IST Ransomware Task Force. She is based in Fort Collins, Colorado.