Speaker Profile

Stephen is the Global Lead of the Red Team, at Avast. He joined Avast in November 2020, and is responsible for leading a team that undertakes penetration testing on software systems to identify vulnerabilities and facilitate the development of secure infrastructures against potential threats.

Stephen is a security professional with 19 years of security industry experience across multiple business sectors including finance and telecommunications. Prior to working at Avast, he was Technical Customer Success Manager at software and IT firm Micro Focus where he worked with the top 50 ASX listed Australian financial and telecommunications companies as well as federal government departments in Canberra to implement cyber security monitoring and application security programs.

Before that, Stephen held the deputy CISO/Ethical Hacker role at Dutch telecommunications company KPN. Earlier, he held security consultant positions in the telecommunications and IT space, including at Verizon Business and Siemens. His knowledge in the areas of penetration testing, security technologies and risk management is extensive; arising from his network engineering, security consultancy and hands on penetration testing background.

Stephen holds a Bachelor of Computer Systems Engineering with an Honours from the University of Queensland.

Stephen is available for media interviews in Australia and New Zealand and can also provide practical tips and explainer content for both consumer and business audiences. He can provide expert commentary across a range of topics including (but not limited to): online scams and cyber threats such as phishing, adware, malware, ransomware, stalkerware and sextortion; business security such as how companies can keep their infrastructures safe; cyber security trends with Avast data available; and penetration testing/ethical hacking.