Black Hat 2026 – Day 2

Gil Geron is CEO & Co-founder of Orca Security. Gil has more than 20 years of experience leading and delivering cybersecurity products. Previous to his role as CEO, Gil was chief product officer from the inception of Orca. He’s passionate about customer satisfaction and has worked closely with customers to ensure they are able to thrive securely in the cloud. Gil is committed to providing seamless cybersecurity solutions without compromising on efficiency. Prior to co-founding Orca Security, Gil directed a large team of cyber professionals at Check Point Software Technologies.

Darren Guccione is an entrepreneur, technologist and business leader. He is the CEO and Co-Founder of Keeper Security, the leading zero-trust and zero-knowledge identity security and Privileged Access Management (PAM) platform, used by more than 95,000 organizations globally. Guccione is a frequent keynote speaker and panelist at global technology and cybersecurity conferences and is regularly featured in national, trade and broadcast media as a cybersecurity subject matter expert. As a visionary entrepreneur, Guccione has co-founded other successful ventures and advised industry-leading companies. Guccione holds a master’s degree from the Kellstadt Graduate School of Business at DePaul University and a Bachelor of Science in Industrial and Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Tricia Howard is an artist gone rogue who ended up in cybersecurity. With a bachelor’s degree in theater arts and interests ranging from “Star Wars” to opera, she likes to bring a bit of pizzazz into the cyber realm. She is the Head of Marketing at Above Security, an AI-native agentic managed insider threat platform built to make insider risk proactive and operational through behavioral intelligence. She has over a decade of cybersecurity experience spanning threat research, content strategy, and technical storytelling, with a particular passion for making complex security topics accessible to both technical and non-technical audiences.

Dr. Sean Murphy is an accomplished cybersecurity executive with more than 20 years’ experience leading information security and risk management in highly regulated industries and fast-paced organizations in the military, healthcare, and financial services space. A 5X former CISO, he has had a wide range of responsibilities for providing and optimizing enterprise-wide security program and architecture that minimizes risk, enables business imperatives, and further strengthens the trust customers have in his organizations.

Sean retired from the U.S. Air Force (Medical Service Corps) after achieving the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. Sean has a Ph.D. in Information Security from Northwestern University, a master’s degree in business administration (advanced IT concentration) from the University of South Florida, a master’s degree in health services administration from Central Michigan University, and a bachelor’s degree in human resource management from the University of Maryland. He holds numerous industry-leading certifications, including NACD.DC, CCISO, CISSP, and ISSMP. He has served on many industry security boards and advisory groups. He is a sought-after speaker at a national level and the author of numerous industry whitepapers, articles, and educational materials. Dr Murphy is also an educator and is currently an adjunct professor at Central Washington University and over time, has held similar posts at several other colleges.

Dr. Brett Stone-Gross is the Senior Director of Threat Intelligence at Zscaler. He has over 20 years of experience tracking sophisticated malware threats and leading technical research teams. Brett has authored dozens of publications and presented at top cybersecurity conferences. His work has led to the disruption of numerous large-scale criminal operations in collaboration with international law enforcement agencies. Some of these operations have included GameOver Zeus, Kelihos, Dridex, Qakbot, and SmokeLoader.

Ellen Boehm is the SVP, Strategy & AI Innovation at Keyfactor. Ellen leads strategy and market positioning to embed security solutions into emerging markets, including IoT, OT, and Agentic AI. Ellen is passionate about emerging technologies and helping customers establish strong security implementations for the lifecycle of their overall connected systems, as they adopt new technologies to grow their business success.

Ellen has 20+ years of experience leading go-to-market strategy and new product development with a focus on IoT and connected products in lighting controls, smart cities, connected buildings, and smart home technology. Ellen has held leadership roles in Product & Engineering at General Electric and Sky Technologies over her career.

Josh Davies is a Principal Market Strategist at Fortra, where he helps shape the strategic direction of the company’s security portfolio and coordinates the activities of the Fortra Intelligence and Research Experts (FIRE) team. Drawing on a career that spans frontline security operations, incident response, threat hunting, solutions architecture, and product strategy, Josh combines practitioner experience with deep market intelligence to help organizations build effective, forward-looking security strategies. He regularly analyzes emerging threats, attacker techniques, and industry trends to inform both product innovation and customer security outcomes.

He is also the co-host of The Art of Security podcast, where he explores cybersecurity challenges, trends, and best practices with industry experts, helping security professionals navigate an increasingly complex threat landscape. Having worked directly with organizations ranging from mid-market businesses to large enterprises, Josh has helped architect security strategies that align technology, risk, and business objectives. Through his podcast, speaking engagements, and research, he is a strong advocate for intelligence-sharing, collaboration, and practical security approaches that enable organizations to stay ahead of an ever-evolving threat landscape.

Braden Russell is a seasoned cybersecurity leader with over 20 years of experience across various disciplines, including Vulnerability Management, Risk and Compliance, Advanced Endpoint Protection, Cloud Security, and Digital Commerce. He has held key leadership roles at prominent companies like Foundstone, McAfee, Intel Security, and Cylance. At Cylance, Braden served as the founding SVP of Product Development and Engineering, where he built the teams and technologies behind all Cylance products, including the award-winning CylancePROTECT, the first Next-Gen Antivirus (NGAV).
Most recently, Braden was the CTO of the Falcon Platform and Next-Gen SIEM at CrowdStrike, where he led the vision and strategy for the first Security Cloud. His innovative contributions to the field are reflected in his patents for advanced techniques in automated vulnerability discovery and intelligent malware detection.
Before transitioning to cybersecurity, Braden was part of the Advanced Digital Systems Group at Sony Pictures Studios, where his team received a Technical Academy Award in 2000.
Braden holds an MBA from Pepperdine University and a BS in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of California, Irvine. He resides in Southern California with his wife and their five sons.

Ronan Murphy is the Chief Data Strategy Officer at Forcepoint. He is an accomplished executive with over 20 years of experience in the tech industry.
Ronan is the Founder and Executive Chairman of Smarttech247 Group Plc, a multi-award-winning managed cybersecurity company. Ronan is also the Co-founder of Getvisibility, one of the world’s leading AI data governance & security software companies.

Recognized for his expertise, Ronan has been honored with membership in the Artificial Intelligence Advisory Council in Ireland. This council is composed of experts from various fields and is tasked with providing independent advice to the Irish government on AI policy.