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Justin Elze

CTO, Director of Research

EXPERIENCE
Justin Elze is currently serving as Chief Technology Officer at TrustedSec. Over his 8 years with the company as an InfoSec expert, Justin has used his vast expertise in enterprise penetration testing, network security, social engineering, and red teaming to identify clients’ vulnerabilities and ultimately, protect their technology infrastructure. Prior to becoming CTO, Justin held the roles of Director of Innovation, Research, and Advanced Testing and Principal Security Consultant for TrustedSec.

With more than a decade of experience in the IT industry, Justin’s expertise is increasingly sought out by others in the field. He has taught at Black Hat and spoken at DerbyCon, where he also served on the CFP Review Board, and is also featured as an industry leader in the published books Tribe of Hackers: Cybersecurity Advice from the Best Hackers in the World and Tribe of Hackers Red Team: Tribal Knowledge from the Best in Offensive Cybersecurity.

Prior to joining TrustedSec, Justin was a Senior Penetration Tester for Accuvant LABS, Optiv, Dell SecureWorks, and Redspin, where he led numerous red team engagements and penetration tests. He has worked across a variety of industries, including roles for ISPs, hosting companies, Department of Defense contracting companies, and consulting companies. Today, he leans on what he learned throughout his roles in various capacities to inform his choices as CTO and further his thought leadership in the industry.

Outside of his work experience and “ethical hacker” persona, Justin is passionate about building, tuning, and racing cars (and, yes, occasionally hacking them) and spending time with his 3 dogs. You can find his latest musings—security-related and otherwise—on his Twitter account, @HackingLZ.

Featured Blogs And Resources

Discover the blogs, analysis, webinars, and podcasts by this team member.

Blog May 18 2023

Walking the Tightrope: Maximizing Information Gathering while Avoiding Detection for Red Teams

Understanding network reconnaissance without detection is crucial in commercial testing, leveraging tools like BloodHound and scripts to gather valuable…

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Blog March 17 2023

Critical Outlook Vulnerability: In-Depth Technical Analysis and Recommendations (CVE-2023-23397)

Protect your organization from the Microsoft Outlook CVE-2023-23397 vulnerability with expert guidance and a simple remediation script.

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Webinars March 15 2023

Ask Me Anything: Penetration Testing Innovations and Insights

Join David Kennedy & Justin Elze for a live Q&A on penetration testing, tackling the ever-changing tactics used by attackers, and get answers to your burning…

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Webinars December 14 2021

Log4j: Live Update Webcast

Learn how to detect and respond to the Log4j vulnerability with experts from TrustedSec & Binary Defense, including David Kennedy, during our live webcast.

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Blog June 12 2026

JS-Tap v3: Endpoint Post-Exploitation With JavaScript Implants

When I first wrote JS-Tap, the goal was to provide red teamers with a generic JavaScript payload that works without prior knowledge of a web application and…

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Blog June 11 2026

Hardening Intune: The Implementation Guide

Part 2: Step-by-Step Configuration for Every ControlThis is Part 2 of a two-part series on Intune security hardening. Part 1 covers the attacks we have seen…

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Blog June 09 2026

How to Train Your (Dragons) Analysts - A TrustedSec Guide to Picking the Perfect Purple Team

Whether it be the advent of AI technologies, new Red-Team techniques and exploits, or new patches and emergent defensive technologies, it’s pretty clear to all…

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Blog June 04 2026

The Privileged Roles Nobody Talks About

Part 1: Why Your MDM Platform is a Tier 0 AssetThis is Part 1 of a two-part series on Intune security hardening. This post covers what we have seen in real…

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Blog June 02 2026

CMMC Conditional Status - Contracting Without Compliance

The CMMC rollout is progressing. Contracts that require a CMMC Level 2 (Self) self-assessment have been circulating since the start of Phase 1 in November…

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Blog May 26 2026

PCI DSS, Telephone Payments, and the Problems With VoIP

Turns out your VoIP system has some opinions about your PCI DSS compliance. Director of Advisory Services Chris Camejo breaks down who's affected and how to…

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