Andy Piazza

Andy is an accomplished security professional with 20 years of experience in security operations, threat intelligence, and incident response. He is currently a Senior Director of Threat Intelligence at Unit 42, where he leads strategic research teams focused on nation state actors, cybercriminal activity, and malware analysis. He has worked alongside clients and stakeholders in multiple critical infrastructure sectors to improve their incident response capabilities, security operations integrations and processes, and threat management programs. Prior to Unit 42, Andy was the global head of threat intelligence at IBM X-Force where he led a team of 50 threat researchers and a go-to-market eff ort to commercialize threat intelligence services. Andy is passionate about leading and developing threat intelligence teams and is a frequent contributor to the cyberthreat intelligence community through his personal blog and talks at industry conferences including DEF CON ICS Village 2024, ShmooCon 2024, SANS CTI Summit 2024, and RSAC 2022. Andy is a U.S. Army combat veteran with multiple deployments to Iraq, Central America, and Haiti. He enjoys writing, mentoring, and project development in support of threat intelligence and cybersecurity operations. He’s also committed to serving the broader cybersecurity community as Operations Lead for the Northern Virginia-based cybersecurity conference BSidesNOVA. Education - Master of Arts, intelligence studies, American Military University - Bachelor of Arts, intelligence studies, American Military University Certifications - Global Information Assurance Certification ('GIAC') Reverse Engineering Malware ("GREM") - GIAC Certified Project Manager ("GCPM") - GIAC Critical Controls Certification ("GCCC") - GIAC Cyber Threat Intelligence ("GCTI") - GIAC Certified Forensic Analyst ("GCFA") - GIAC Certified Intrusion Analyst ("GCIA") - GIAC Certified Incident Handler ("GCIH") - GIAC Security Essentials Certification ("GSEC") - Splunk Certified User