Since he founded one of the first IT Security consultancies in Spain, Ismael Valenzuela has participated as a security professional in numerous projects across the globe over the past 18 years.
As a top cybersecurity expert with strong technical background and deep knowledge of penetration testing, security architectures, intrusion detection and computer forensics, Ismael has provided security consultancy, advice and guidance to large government and private organizations, including major EU Institutions and US Government Agencies.
Prior to his current role as Sr. Principal Engineer at McAfee, where he leads research on threat hunting using machine-learning and expert-system driven investigations, Ismael led the delivery of SOC, IR & Forensics services for the Foundstone Services team within Intel globally. Previously, Ismael worked as Global IT Security Manager for iSOFT Group Ltd, one of the world’s largest providers of healthcare IT solutions, managing their security operations in more than 40 countries.
As a long time contributor to the security community, Ismael has authored numerous technical articles and popular open source tools like rastrea2r and is the co-founder of the Open SOC project TTP0. He is also a regular speaker at international conferences like BlackHat, BSides, Gartner and SANS Summits, among others, and is one of the few Certified SANS Instructors for the Cyberdefense and Digital Forensics tracks. Ismael is also co-author of the CyberDefense and Blue Team Operations course, SANS SEC530: Defensible Security Architecture & Engineering.
He holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from the University of Malaga (Spain), is certified in business administration, and holds many professional certifications. These include the highly regarded GIAC Security Expert (GSE #132) in addition to GREM, GCFA, GCIA, GCIH, GPEN, GCUX, GCWN, GWAPT, GSNA, GMON, CISSP, ITIL, CISM, and IRCA 27001 Lead Auditor from Bureau Veritas UK.
Ismael also serves as an Advisory Board Member for the BigData Certificate Program at Rutgers University, as well as on the GIAC Advisory Board.
ismael.valenzuela [at] gmail.com
@aboutsecurity