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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 March 26 2026

Policy as Code: Stop Writing Policies and Start Compiling Them

The Problem Nobody Wants to Talk AboutLet me paint a picture most security leaders will recognize.You have 30+ policies living as Word documents on SharePoint.…

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Blog March 24 2026

Building a Detection Foundation: Part 4 - Sysmon

Filling the Gaps Native Logging Can'tAt this point in our series, we have Windows Security events capturing logon sessions and process creation, and…

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Blog March 19 2026

Full Disclosure: A Third (and Fourth) Azure Sign-In Log Bypass Found

Invisible password sprays. Invisible logins. Full tokens returned.Nyxgeek here. It's 2026 and I've got two more Azure Entra ID sign-in log bypasses…

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Blog March 17 2026

Better Together: Combining Automation and Manual Testing

When I started working in mobile application security in 2018, most testing was still largely manual. Since then, the ecosystem has exploded with scanners,…

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Blog March 12 2026

LnkMeMaybe - A Review of CVE-2026-25185

A Windows shortcut (.lnk) seems very simple on the surface. It is a file that points somewhere and tells the system to open or execute a resource. A shortcut…

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Blog March 10 2026

Building a Detection Foundation: Part 3 - PowerShell and Script Logging

The Second Most Important Data Source You're Probably Not CapturingIn Part 2, we enabled process creation logging with command lines. That's a big…

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