Speakers

A China cyber strategy research advisor to KPMG, MacDonnell Ulsch is a widely respected commentator, lecturer, author and analyst, advising the US government legislative branch and the private sector on the China threat. He has been at the forefront of many of the world’s major domestic and international national security and corporate data breaches—the ones you never hear about! The ones involving transnational organized criminal groups hijacking a CEO’s web identity to threatening a public company with blackmail—and exposing its top clients to pornographic web sites. A former global cyber threat advisor to the Central Intelligence Agency operating under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), he is the author of two books, THREAT! Managing Risk in a Hostile World and CYBER THREAT! How to Manage the Growing Risk of Cyber Attacks.
Don is the founder of The China 863 Analyst, a research initiative specializing in how China is transforming itself and the developing world through advanced technology transfer—through cyber espionage, merger and acquisition, equity investment, international joint market and research ventures.
He is a commentator and analyst on the syndicated talk radio program Homeland Security Off the Record and a contributing editor at the national security website Inteliscopx.com. Don is a Distinguished Fellow at the Ponemon Institute, a Senior Fellow at the Near East Center for Strategic Engagement, a Cybersecurity Research Fellow at Boston College, and a Guest Lecturer on Cyber Warfare at the United States Military Academy at West Point.
He proudly served on the United States Treasury Critical Infrastructure Task Force and the United States Secrecy Commission. Don was a Senior Managing Director of Cybercrime at PricewaterhouseCoopers and a Vice President of Information Security and Chief Analyst at Dun & Bradstreet/Dataquest. He also was a national security source the the novelist Dan Brown for his book, Digital Fortress.

I am a strategic leader with strong communications skills, cybersecurity knowledge, and deep experience delivering global programs. My practical information security knowledge stems from broad experience as a Cigital consultant, a Symantec product manager, and day-to-day leadership roles at eBay and Zynga.

I authored the popular textbook Security Metrics: A Beginner’s Guide. My writing is also featured in Epic Failures in DevSecOps Vol. 1, CISO COMPASS: Navigating Cybersecurity Leadership Challenges with Insights from Pioneers, Cybersecurity Career Guide: Who Works in Cybersecurity, How We Got Started, Why We Need You, and IT Security Metrics: A Practical Framework for Measuring Security & Protecting Data.

Vanessa Sauter and I host the Humans of InfoSec Podcast: https://soundcloud.com/humans-of-infosec

Kirsten brings more than 25 years of experience in risk intelligence, information management, and policy expertise across a variety of sectors with the last 6 years as a CEO for technology companies.

Throughout her career, Kirsten has been appointed to congressional committees developing cyber policies, initiatives and recommendations for the intelligence community. She has developed recommendations in partnership with the Center for North American Studies (CNAS) and Center for Strategic and International Studies(CSIS) for The White House energy policy, and collaborated on information studies for MIT-Harvard and several federal agencies. She has gone before a parliamentary subcommittee on recreating trust in the global economy, presented national security and critical infrastructure concepts at conferences such as Black Hat, Secured Americas, Enterprise Architecture Institute, SC World Congress, and the Eurim Information Management Committee. She has also spoken on applied economics and its relationship to both cyber and national security around the world.

In previous executive roles for Cyber adAPT, ISC8, Attensity Group, and iSIGHT Partners, she has led companies through corporate restructuring, risk and corporate intelligence product launches, and company turnarounds. Kirsten has a BA in English and German from the University of Oregon.