David Kennedy

“Security expert, keynote speaker, avid gamer, and the go-to for protecting companies from threats.”

David is a subject matter expert in cybersecurity with over 19 years of experience, whose career has ranged from a Chief Security Officer (CSO) for a Fortune 1000 company, to testifying in front of Congress, and guest appearances on hundreds of national news and syndicated TV shows. With a mission of continuing to drive the cybersecurity industry forward and to make the world a better place, David has started several large-scale and successful cybersecurity businesses with employees all over the world.

TrustedSec and Binary Defense, David's 2 cybersecurity firms, work on a global scale to protect companies, people, and the world from hackers. TrustedSec provides InfoSec consulting services for organizations of all sizes, while Binary Defense is a leader in Managed Security Service Provider (MSSP), Managed Detection and Response (MDR), and software security that detects attackers in the early stages and prevents large-scale invasions.

Prior to creating TrustedSec and Binary Defense, David was a CSO for Diebold Incorporated, a Fortune 1000 company located in more than 80 countries with over 20,000 employees. During his tenure, he developed a global security program that tackled all aspects of InfoSec.

David is considered a forward thinker in the security field and has had the privilege of speaking at some of the nation’s largest conferences, including keynoting Microsoft’s BlueHat, DEF CON, Black Hat, DerbyCon, Grace Hopper, and a number of other widely popular conferences. In 2011, David founded DerbyCon, a large-scale InfoSec conference. David has had numerous guest appearances on Fox News, CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, Huffington Post, Bloomberg, BBC, and other high-profile media outlets, while advising for other news organizations and TV shows. In addition, his tools have been featured on several TV shows and movies, and he assisted in developing the content for the popular Mr. Robot TV show.

As the security threats faced by the public and the government have grown, David has testified in front of Congress on multiple occasions. In an effort to advance the industry, David co-authored Metasploit: The Penetration Testers Guide, which was number one on Amazon in security for over a year, and co-founded the Penetration Testing Execution Standard (PTES), which is the industry-leading standard and guidelines around how penetration tests should be performed. The methodologies in PTES have been adopted by the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard (DSS) Guidelines for Penetration Testing.

David is the creator of several open-source tools, including The Social-Engineer Toolkit (SET), PenTesters Framework (PTF), Artillery, and Fast-Track. David has also released security advisories, including zero-days, and focuses on security research.

Prior to the private sector, David worked in the United States Marine Corps (USMC) for cyber warfare and forensics analysis activities for the intelligence community, including 2 tours to Iraq. David also served as board of director for the ISC2 organization, which is one of the largest security collectives and offers certifications such as the CISSP.