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David Kennedy
Founder, Chief Hacking Officer
Experience
David is a cybersecurity authority whose mission is to drive the industry forward and make the world a more secure place. In addition to creating two large-scale cybersecurity firms, David has testified before Congress on issues of national security and has appeared as a subject matter expert on hundreds of national news and TV shows.
Education & Certifications
CISSP, OSCP, OSCE, GSEC, MCSE, ISO 27001
Professional Affiliations
Prior to creating TrustedSec, David was a Chief Security Officer (CSO) for Diebold Incorporated, a Fortune 1000 company. As a forward thinker in the security field, David has had the privilege of speaking at some of the nation’s largest conferences, including Microsoft’s BlueHat, DEF CON, Black Hat, and DerbyCon, which he co-created in 2011 and expanded into DerbyCon Communities.
David is a regular contributor and subject matter expert on cybersecurity stories for Fox News, CNN, Bloomberg, BBC, and other high-profile media outlets. Further, his tools have been featured on a number of TV shows and movies, and he served as Technical Consultant for the critically acclaimed Mr. Robot TV show.
David served in the United States Marine Corps (USMC), focusing on cyber warfare and forensics analysis activities, including two tours to Iraq. David also served on the board of directors for (ISC)2, which is one of the largest security collectives and offers certifications such as the CISSP.
Industry Contributions
In an effort to advance the industry, David co-authored ‘Metasploit: The Penetration Testers Guide’ and co-founded the ‘Penetration Testing Execution Standard’ (PTES), which is the industry standard for penetration tests and has been adopted by the Payment Card Industry (PCI). David is the creator of several popular open-source tools, including ‘The Social-Engineer Toolkit’ (SET), PenTesters Framework (PTF), Artillery, and Fast-Track. In addition to focusing on research, David has released a number of security advisories, including zero-days.
Passion for Security
David Kennedy’s passion for the information security industry is the reason TrustedSec was born. He wanted to build an organization that helps others in a profound way, serving as technical security experts and advisors to companies of all sizes and industries.
In addition to his formal achievements, David donates his time and wisdom by speaking with civic leaders and students about the importance of security. Bedford High School, David’s alma mater, named its Kennedy Center for Gaming and Leadership in his honor.
Recent Blog Posts
PCI Specialist Art “Coop” Cooper Joins TrustedSec Team
When I founded TrustedSec in 2012, I knew exactly the type of person that I wanted to work alongside: talented, passionate about their corner of the security industry, and genuinely interested in helping anyone with the desire to learn more. After nearly a decade, I’m thrilled that TrustedSec is still able to add new people...
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Practicing What We Preach
At TrustedSec, we work with a lot of Chief Security Officers. As a security company, it’s a role that we think is vitally important to every organization’s success. Historically, our entire team has made a collective effort to meet our own security goals. However, as we continue to grow, we recognize that having a central...
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From The Desk of the CEO: Adam Chester Joins TrustedSec as Senior Security Consultant
Today is an exciting day at TrustedSec! It’s not often that we get to announce the addition of a world-class Red Teaming and InfoSec researcher, but today happens to be one of those days. We’re officially announcing that Adam Chester is joining TrustedSec as a Senior Security Consultant on our Red Team. With Adam’s addition...
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Recent Webinars
Advanced Architecture: How to Stop Inbound Threats, Not Business.
Recording: CEO David Kennedy will be part of the expert lineup at Tessian’s Human Layer Security Summit on March 3rd. His session “New Vulnerabilities, Ransomware and Supply Chain Attacks; 3 Lessons to Make You Rethink Your Inbound Strategy” is first...
Log4j: Live Update Webcast
Presented by TrustedSec & Binary Defense on December 14, 2021. During this live webcast we are covering the latest news and guidance on the Log4j vulnerability and what organizations can do to detect and respond to it. We will discuss...
The Ransomware Simulation
On September 30, 2021 TrustedSec gathered a panel of our experts to discuss threat hunting tactics and provided guidance for responding to ransomware attacks in front of a live audience. A range of strategies were presented regarding detection, deflection, and...
Recent Podcasts
Sealing Wax and Other Fancy Stuff
September 26, 2022
Merry Christmas
September 26, 2022
DerbyCon Victory Lap!
September 26, 2022
