Adrian is the Founder and Principal Researcher at The Defenders Initiative, a firm he founded to feature and support decades of cybersecurity research. His background spans technical, GRC, and leadership roles with a background as a practitioner, incident responder, penetration tester, and PCI QSA. His current research focuses on improving vulnerability management and breach analysis. The Defenders Initiative is systematically publishing easy-to-consume lessons learned from every breach where we have a deep understanding of how the attack happened. He also maintains “Destroyed by Breach” - a list of all companies that have gone out of business due to a cybersecurity breach or incident. There are currently 26 businesses on the list. He is the host of the Enterprise Security Weekly Podcast and the Alice in Supply Chains Podcast. As faculty at IANS Research, he advises hundreds of enterprises every year. After helping to deliver 11 successful events, he retired from BSides Knoxville in 2025 but remains a member of the Global BSides committee. He is also a member of several other community groups like the Security Tinkerers and the Cybersecurity Canon. After 25+ years in the industry, he still sees the glass as half full.
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