Pasquale Stirparo

Pasquale Stirparo is currently a Principal Adversary Hunter in the Threat Intelligence team at Dragos, Inc. He has worked in the Digital Forensics (DFIR) & Threat Intelligence space for over 14 years and mastered a variety of roles and industries. Pasquale has worked both in the private sector and at the institutional level (for the EU), in Operational roles, as well as in Research. Before joining Dragos, he was Security and Privacy Incident Manager at Google Zurich, where he was responsible for coordinating the response to major security and privacy incidents across all Alphabet, Google's parent company.

Pasquale holds a Ph.D. in Information and Communication System Security from the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm, an M.Sc. and a B.Sc. in Computer Engineering from Polytechnic of Torino. He is also a research associate at the Centre for Technology and Global Affairs at Oxford University and has attended the "State-Sponsored Cyber Threat Actors" Summer Program of the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University.

“When I started my bachelor’s degree, I knew I wanted to learn more and work in the Computer industry, but I had no idea about Security. Then, in one of the first classes on "Technical Writing", one of the topics was Cryptography. I was so fascinated by it and its history, that I decided I wanted to work in security, but still had no idea about all of its domains, especially the defense part”

His main initial driver towards the computer industry was curiosity. “I wanted to know more how those "magic boxes" worked, that's why I decided to study Computer Engineering, but back then I had literally no clue about cybersecurity yet, not at all.”

Outside his official employment duties, he has interacted with different Intelligence related groups, which greatly enriched his knowledge in the field. He has been a member of the FS-ISAC EMEA Threat Intelligence Committee and the Advisory Group on Internet Security at Europol, and was an Incident Handler at SANS Internet Storm Center. He was also a part of the Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group of ENISA, the EU Agency for Cybersecurity.

Pasquale took his first SANS course back in 2008, and ever since he remained part of the SANS family. He started facilitating classes and attending and presenting at SANS events and he now teaches the FOR578: Cyber Threat Intelligence course. “There were two main aspects that always attracted me to SANS and its courses; the first was the instructors, they are well known and respected professionals who actually do work in the field daily. The second was the quality and the frequency of update of the course material.”

In his personal time, he loves reading, especially books on Economics, Geopolitics, History, Biographies and Personal Development. He also enjoys playing football, cooking, and playing his guitar.