About
I’ve been at this since the modem era. Phone phreaking, BBSes over dial-up, taking the family PC apart and putting it back together until things stopped breaking. The kid above grew up to do it for a living.
My professional path ran through NOC and infrastructure work, then security engineering at Deloitte Global, and an early stop in cryptocurrency security at ShapeShift and KeepKey in 2014, back when “crypto security” wasn’t yet a discipline. Head of Security at Casa Inc. came next, then CSO at Botanix Labs. I currently head up Security at Category Labs, the team building the Monad reference client, where I run security reviews, bug bounty programs, AI tooling, and incident response.
I also run my own consulting business — see Consulting for engagement details.
Track record
- Head of Security, Category Labs (the team building Monad)
- CSO, Botanix Labs
- Head of Security, Casa Inc.
- Senior Security Engineer, ShapeShift
- Security Engineer, Deloitte Global
- Architect of the CryptoCurrency Security Standard Auditor (CCSSA) exam; world’s first certified auditor; CCSS Steering Committee
- Hands-on incident response against DPRK/Lazarus Group/TraderTraitor in cryptocurrency contexts
- Co-organizer, DEF CON Blockchain Village (2020, 2021)
- Speaker, DEF CON Blockchain Village
Hackathons
- MIT Bitcoin Hackathon Winner (2021 and 2023)
- ETHDenver 2020 Open Track Finalist & Celebrity Judges Choice
- ETHDenver 2021 Hackathon Finalist
- COVIDathon Decentralized AI Hackathon Winner
- Bolt.fun AI4All Hackathon Education Track Winner
Recognition
- HackTheBox Hall of Fame, Top 25 (2018)
- Cosmos Game of Zones Adversarial Testnet Liveness Winner (2020)
Writing
I write publicly at ron.stoner.com and as @forwardsecrecy on X, with bylines in Bitcoin Magazine and the Casa blog.