Who are the InGuardians?

Bob Hillery is an experienced consultant in Information Systems Security Management. He is a founder and Chief Research Officer with InGuardians, Inc. and has an extensive background in computer networks gained through the Navy and R&D labs. Bob has worked in National Institute of Justice projects and been a Senior researcher with the Institute for Security Technology Studies at Dartmouth College. He served as the Vice President of Academic Affairs & Chair of Information Systems Department for NH Community Technical College, and currently teaches National Security and Cyber-terrorism research courses at the Henry C. Lee College of Forensic Sciences at the University of New Haven. He has significant experience with both the management side and technical issues of security incident handling from his consulting practice. Bob’s professional certifications and affiliations include CISSP, GIAC, MCSE, ISSA and HTCIA.

 Suzanne is the Director of Operations with InGuardians, but she is also a Project Manager extraordinaire holding her hard earned PMP certification. Suzanne’s experience includes over 10 years in Information Security, in that time working from the ground up through the ranks at InGuardians. Throughout her years at InGuardians, Suzanne has been able to wear many different hats and as a result, she has learned the ins and outs of the company and the subtleties that make the security industry special. Suzanne is responsible for playing a mean game of Tetris, scheduling resources for all of the current and future engagements and getting all the pieces to fall together. She thoroughly enjoys mentoring and providing support to her team.  Suzanne believes in trying to stay positive, always showing appreciation to those around her and singing, in the car

Larry Pesce graduated with a Bachelor of Computer Information Systems in 2006, and has worked professionally as Senior Managing Security Analyst with InGuardians since 2013 and as the Director of Research since 2015. His history with hardware hacking began with the family TV when he was a kid, rebuilding it after it caught on fire. Both times. Later, as a web developer for a university in the early days of the Internet, he managed some of the first Layer 3 switched networks in the world. His core specialities include hardware and wireless hacking, architectural review, and traditional pentesting, often in the financial, energy and healthcare sectors. On the managerial side, he makes sure all the wheels are still on the ground, going over reports, and leading up research efforts, concentrating especially on IoT. He also regularly gives talks at DEF CON, ShmooCon, DerbyCon, and various BSides. Larry holds the GAWN, GCISP, GCIH, GCFA, and ITIL certifications, and has been a certified instructor with SANS for 5 years, where he trains the industry in advanced wireless and Industrial Control Systems (ICS) hacking. He’s also the co-author of multiple papers and books, including Linksys WRT54G Ultimate Hacking, Using Wireshark and Ethereal, and How to Cheat at Configuring Open Source Security Tools; and the technical editor of Wireless Reconnaissance for Penetration Testing, and The Blue Team Handbook: Incident Response Edition. In 2006, he co-founded the multiple international award-winning security podcast, “Paul’s Security Weekly”, which he continues to co-host. Alongside inspiring 150,000 downloads a month, Larry’s independent research for the show has led to interviews with the New York Times with MythBusters’ Adam Savage, hacking internet-connected marital aids on stage at DEFCON, and having his RFID implant cloned on stage at Shmoocon. When not hard at work, Larry enjoys long walks on the beach weighed down by his ham radio, (DE KB1TNF), and thinking of ways to survive the impending zombie apocalypse.

Jaime began her journey with InGuardians in 2011 as a Sales Associate, and is presently the Director of Sales. Jaime spends her days working closely with multiple clients from a variety of industries around the world, overseeing each step of the InGuardians’ sales process. Jaime’s greatest strengths are her creativity, her exceptional writing skills, and her unique ability to skillfully listen and interpret information in order to assist clients with meeting their security assessment needs. Jaime received her BA from Wells College, and her MA from UAB. In addition to her unhealthy obsession with Monchhichis, Jaime has two unwavering convictions: 1) There’s nothing like a good penetration test. 2) David Bowie will always rock!

A die hard Crimson Tide fan, James has been with the InGuardians Team for over four years. He assists with sales, including preparing legal documents and responding to RFPs. After hours he likes to unplug and enjoy time with his family.

 Teresa Pergram is responsible for the day to day operation of the finance department, where she works closely with both the CFO & COO .  Her current role also includes Project Management.  Her experience includes 15 years in billing along with working with our Security Agents and Management on many different projects.  Her passion for efficiency and numbers makes her a great fit in both areas. She has a range of key responsibilities from accounting to managing projects, making her an all around contributor and a highly skilled multitasker. These along with her skill of managing client expectations makes her a valuable asset to the InGuardians team in both roles she currently holds.

John H. Sawyer is a Senior Security Analyst with InGuardians specializing in network and web application penetration testing. John’s experience in enterprise IT security includes penetration testing, system and network hardening, intrusion analysis, and digital forensics. John has developed and taught cyber security training for a large university and spoken at events for industry and law enforcement. He has consulted with federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies on malware analysis, hacker attacks, and digital forensics. He is member of the winning team (1@stplace) from DEF CON 14’s and 15’s Capture the Flag competition, co-founder of the University of Florida Student Infosec Team (http://ufhack.org), and founder of SwampSec (http://swampsec.org). John is also a respected author and currently writes for Dark Reading and InformationWeek Magazine. John has held numerous certifications including GCFW, GCIH, GCFA, GWAPT, and CISSP.

Adam Crompton is a Senior Security Consultant with InGuardians where he specializes in penetration testing, research and development, and architecture reviews. He has spent a great deal of time within the networks of Insurance Companies performing penetration testing, vulnerability analysis, network device configuration and access reviews, data loss prevention, and software development. Adam has been a speaker at several security conferences and universities presenting on data exfiltration, antivirus evasion, and the honeypot tools he has developed. He is a graduate of The Ohio State University, with a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science.

Tyler Robinson started at InGuardians in 2015 as a Security Analyst/Penetration Tester after leaving another boutique penetration company, conducting custom blackbox penetration tests for government intelligence agencies, financial industry, and fortune 100 companies. Prior to that, he held several high profile positions as a security, system, and network administrator for local county government and law enforcement 911 networks. Specializing in Red Teaming, APT threat modeling, social engineering,IoT hardware hacking, and web application penetration testing,Tyler first got into hacking in the 90s, when he learned about phone phreaking, war dialing, and network infrastructures. Tyler received his Associates in Computer Science and Network Administration in 2006 and holds many industry recognized certifications including GIAC; GPEN, GCIH, GWAPT, GCWN, GSEC. He is currently on track for a GSE and has participated on the NIATEC and Pacific Rim CCDC Red Teams as an adversarial opponent. Tyler was also trained and mentored by an ex-NSA operator who taught him the tools, tactics and procedures used by NSA offensive teams, which he later helped teach in a “DarkSide Ops” course at Blackhat, both in the US and overseas. In his free time Tyler spends most of his time with his family in Idaho where he is restoring a 100+yr old church (the Church of T) that is also serves as his house. He also plays amateur divisional soccer, obsessively lifts weights, hunts, picks locks, and is in the process of building the next generation of in-memory malware for, *cough*pentesting.

Jarrod Frates has more than a decade of formal security experience, performing in both attack and defensive roles, and has worked as a Senior Security Analyst with InGuardians since 2015. Prior to that, he worked through all levels, from end-user to help desk to sysadmin to building security teams and network operations centers for large corporate enterprises. In the late 1990s, he first saw a demonstration for a remote exploit—gaining shell over FTP—and was hooked. From then on, he incorporated security into his work, encouraging (and sometimes dragging) colleagues and even managers to do the same. In 2004, he got his first formal security job, helping to build a SOC in a county government environment and eventually handling firewalls, IDS, VPNs, incident handling, and just about everything else on the defensive side of the security realm. His first penetration testing job arrived in 2012, and since then he has been bettering his capabilities while also improving the final reports delivered to clients. Jarrod holds the GCIH, GPEN, and GXPN certifications, and is qualified as a SANS Mentor for SEC504 and SEC560, where he led several classes over the last seven years. It’s also not uncommon to find him speaking at various conferences and local functions in the Dallas Fort-Worth area, where he lives. Outside of InGuardians, Jarrod is also the Chief Technology Officer for TheLab.ms, a North Dallas-based makerspace/hackerspace providing free education for technology DIYers. He holds a private pilot’s license and doesn’t get nearly as much time in the air as he would like.

Rob CurtinSeufert has spent years in and out of Bank and Credit Union networks. Rob has conducted network, wireless, and web application penetration tests against organizations ranging from 25 million to 10 billion in assets. He also works in incident response and social engineering, both on and off site. He once took over a county from his couch while still wearing his pajamas

Tito joined the InGuardians team in 2017. He assists the Sales Department with NDA’s, COI’s, and data compilation. He’s a rabid music fan, musician, travel junkie, and cyclist, who cooks for his kids every day.

Galen Alderson works as an intern with InGuardians, where he is learning the tricks of the trade, and advancing those tricks in new directions. Galen began his journey into technology with little more outside guidance than a Perl book from his father and a lesson on using Google. As a result, he learned how to quickly master new technologies as the needs arose. His time spent writing Minecraft mods developed his ability to learn how to use something despite sparse documentation, a skill he now applies regularly to Linux man pages. Galen seeks to understand every facet of the systems he works with. He is a programming language polyglot, and has a vast amount of knowledge about everything from synthesizer hardware and microprocessors to high level functional programming abstractions. He has learned that once something is truly understood, it is trivially bent to serve one’s own purposes.

Dan Bowman is a veteran IT manager with 31 years’ experience and began working exclusively in IT security in 1997. He is also a former instructor for several security vendors such as Check Point, ISS, and Nokia Internet Communications. He joins InGuardians after working for Tenable Network Security from 2003 to 2013 and has a career spanning from Cray Research to Johns Hopkins University.

He is also opening a distillery in Maryland as an extension of a long history of brewing beer.