It is no secret that elections are under constant attack. Attacks take many shapes and forms, from dis-information to malware to denial of service, its all in play as adversaries look to disrupt enemy infrastructure. Tod Beardsley, Director of Research at Rapid 7 brings unique and insightful perspectives on this topic as he is analyzing data from scans of the entire Internet and monitoring over 250 honeypots.Mike Nichols, Head of Product at Elastic, discusses election security and their partnership with the DDC to offer 2020 campaigns free security.
Tod Beardsley is VP of Security Research at runZero, where he “kicks assets and fakes frames.” Prior to 2025, he was the Section Chief for the Vulnerability Response section for CSD/VM/VRC at CISA, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, part of the US government. He’s also a founder and CNA point of contact for AHA!. He spends much of his time involved in vulnerability research and coordinated vulnerability disclosure (CVD). He has over 30 years of hands-on security experience, stretching from in-band telephony switching to modern ICS/OT implementations. He has held IT ops, security, software engineering, and management positions in large organizations such as the Rapid7, 3Com, Dell, and Westinghouse, as both an offensive and defensive practitioner. Tod is a CVE Board member, has authored several research papers, and hosted Rapid7’s Security Nation podcast with Jen Ellis. He is also a former Travis County Election Judge in Texas, and is currently an internationally-tolerated horror fiction expert.
Mike leads Product Management at Elastic Security and is the former Vice President of Product Management at Endgame. He manages the PM team and ensures the product team is constantly listening to customers, researching the market, and deriving differentiated technology in order to choose the best strategic path for the company. Mike is also a Cybersecurity Strategy Instructor at Georgetown.
