Our Team

Brendan got his beginning in desktop support before making the move over to security, first as defense before switching sides for offensive security. His current focus is malware development and payload delivery, as well as scouring enterprise networks for vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and loot. Brendan has a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, as well as CISSP, OSCP, and OSCE certifications. He has presented at DefCon416, BsidesTO, and has participated in C3X. In his spare time, Brendan enjoys practicing a variety of martial arts, reading comic books, playing video games, and gardening

Teresa joined Lares in February 2018, as a certified project manager and brings with her more than 12 years’ experience in the IT/IS and healthcare industries.

She excels in establishing excellent working relationships with clients, employees, vendors, and contractors. Teresa is highly adaptable and focused on results, with a proven record of achieving successful projects that meet budget, schedule, and scope.

A big believer in giving back to the community, she volunteers for Whiz Kids Tutoring, Denver Rescue Mission, and Cornerstone Church.

Daralyn joined Lares in August of 2020 after working in Oil & Gas since 2004. Her work experience includes laboratory R&D, engineering design & capital equipment project management for large construction projects. While she is new to the Information Security industry, she has been adjacent to the hacker community since the late 90s and has been a DEF CON Goon off and on since DC14. She has worn many hats and enjoys being a client-facing resource and a general force multiplier.

Jessica Archer has 22 years of combined experience working in telecommunications and technology, including 18 years working within the information security industry. Jessica helped create the National Collegiate Cyber Defense competition, holds several advisory and board positions including BSides Las Vegas Conference and ISC2 NAAC, and is an avid volunteer both inside and outside the information security community. In her spare time, Jessica enjoys hanging out with her family, outdoor adventures, and tabletop or video games.

Anton is a BSides Toronto speaker, C3X volunteer, and an OSCE, OSCP, CISSP, CSSP certificate holder. Anton enjoys the defensive aspects of cybersecurity and loves logs and queries.

Eric is a 20-year veteran of the Information Security industry. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Information Systems Security and maintains active CISSP and CISA certifications. Along with Chris Nickerson, he helped create the Penetration Testing Execution Standard (PTES). Prior to working at Lares®, he founded Full Protocol, and worked as a senior security consultant and analyst at a major utility, technology, and energy companies. He’s spoken and/or taught at DEFCON, Security BSides, DerbyCon, HackCon, Infosec World, ShakaCon, DakotaCon, and other worldwide conferences.

Mark Arnold has a 15+ cybersecurity career, serving 8 of those years in leadership roles. As a transformational leader, Mark has built security teams and programs, authored maturity model blueprints to optimize risk management processes, and implemented security domain practices at large enterprises and service providers. Mark’s areas of interest include cloud security, threat intelligence, and vulnerability research, nation-state attack methods and related activities (e.g. information operations and disinformation campaigns) and their collective impact on nations and society. Mark recently completed an executive education cohort on the intersection of cybersecurity and technology at Harvard’s Kennedy School.

Mark also commits time to the security community as an OWASP chapter and InfoSecWorld board member, among others. He holds industry certifications and has satisfied his intellectual curiosity with earned degrees from Stanford (BSEE), Princeton Seminary (Mdiv), and Harvard University (AM, Ph.D.). He is a former competitive gymnast and an ordained minister but, most importantly, cherishes his role as a husband and dad who thrives on hugs.

Connor is a Computer Engineering Technology graduate and has worked in Information Technology since the mid-2000s. He started his information security career in 2010 and instantly had a taste for the offensive side of security. While not to be confused with an efficient coder, Connor enjoys writing payloads and trying to find offensive applications to everyday information technology solutions. When Connor isn’t living in memory (hopefully), he is probably entertaining his two Samoyed pups who are constantly reminding him that they are the number one priority and not hacking.

Chris Nickerson, CEO of Lares, has spent the last 23 years of his career leading, inspiring, and sometimes irritating, the security industry. With Lares co-Founder Eric M. Smith, he created the unique methodology used at Lares to assess, implement, and manage information security realistically and effectively. Collaborating with a group of other InfoSec researchers, he founded the Penetration Testing Execution Standard (PTES), and is working with the Red Team Alliance Training Collective to create a certification for Red Team Testing.

He is one of the founders of the Security BSides conferences, he’s been a keynote, speaker, and/or trainer at more than fifty InfoSec conferences worldwide, including DEFCON, CyberWeek, and BlackHat. He’s a member and certification holder with ISACA, on the board of CREST, and holds CISSP, CISA, BS7799, and NSA IAM certifications.

His book, Red Team Testing, is upcoming from Elsevier/Syngress. And despite all that, he is perhaps best known for his appearance on the TV show Tiger Team on TruTV, and his TED Talk, Hackers are all about curiosity, and security is just a feeling.

For the past 20 yrs, Rick has been involved in Web Application security penetration testing and mentoring colleagues. His extensive experience in general network design, implementation, and maintenance, along with his testing within the financial and healthcare sectors has proved to be valuable to our clients.

In his free time, Rick enjoys taking his kids to NHL hockey games.

Amanda has been a senior executive at oil and gas companies for the last 18 years before transitioning into cybersecurity. She started her career in Calgary, Canada, and has worked throughout North America, the Middle East, and North Africa. During her career, she has been a founding member of numerous oil and gas companies specializing in finance and operations. She is a great paper pusher, mother of two fur babies, and a crazy Canadian who has traveled and worked around the world.

Eric has been doing consultative selling and account management for 22 years, with 12 of those years in the information
technology sector. He is experienced in data center managed services, internet service, managed security services, and IT security audit services and creating sound business continuity and resilience strategies for mid-market and small businesses.

He is also experienced in compliance frameworks, network testing, policy and procedure oversight, pillars of security program development, and security risk management. Eric’s Early background includes account management, inside sales support, help desk support, scheduling/service coordination, analyst and project management, product/services management, and quality assurance.

Eric holds a Bachelor of Science (BSc) in Environmental Management Systems from Louisiana State University.

Samuel’s background is in systems and network administration though he’s always focused on security. Due to a wide range of security consulting roles, Samuel has experience working with stakeholders in a variety of industries. His primary focus is on offensive security and penetration testing. Samuel has experience conducting penetration tests against internal and external networks and services, as well as web and mobile applications. Samuel has a MS degree in information assurance and computer security. In his free time, Samuel enjoys hanging out with his family.

Tim started his IT career in desktop support in the late 90s and worked his way into systems and network administration. In the early 2000s, he rode the wave of internet worms into security, primarily performing incident response and forensics. His degrees are in electronics/chemistry and an MS in digital forensics. Defense paid the bills but he enjoyed offensive more, so he joined Lares® in 2016. He’s been involved with DEFCON since 2002 and competed in the main CTF, organized the wireless contests, and led teams for the conference. In his free time, Tim enjoys taking things apart to figure out how they work and fix them, whether it’s electronics, machines, or cars.

Lee started in IT and security world in 2010 in Toronto, Canada. When Lee isn’t tip-toeing through enterprise’s Active Directory environments he’s running the DerbyCon Toronto Community Chapter, the Canadian Collegiate Cyber Exercise (C3X), and as an instructor teaching Canadian offensive and defensive professionals ways to up their game. Lee has spoken at multiple events and conferences such as BSides and SecTor. In his spare time, Lee is an executive chef at a restaurant in his mind.

Interested in pursuing application security since beginning his Computer Science education, Luke made the conscious choice to spend the initial part of his career living life as a software engineer to gain an appreciation for the “maker” side of the process. He also holds GWAPT and CSSLP certifications.

Outside of work, Luke is typically associated with his passion for all things bicycle-related, and more generally non-motorized transportation, be it walking, running, skating, or the most recently added, sea kayaking.

Mike has 10 years of application security experience with the last several being purely offensive. When he is abusing someone’s web application, he is cooking or playing music.

Chris’ work centers on applications, process control, and radio security. Outside of Lares® his hobbies include building combat robots and all sorts of other weird things, outdoor activities, and consuming all the media he can.