Keynote, day one
Michael Johnson
CISO of Capital One and former CIO of the U.S. Department of Energy opened the conference; Rick Howard, CSO of Palo Alto Networks, closed the day.
The second IRC conference at the Renaissance Arlington Capital View. Sixteen vendor training sessions, keynotes from Capital One and Palo Alto Networks, and the first cyber range wargaming contest.
Expected attendees
Ballroom capacity
Cyber ranges
Cost to members
CISO of Capital One and former CIO of the U.S. Department of Energy opened the conference; Rick Howard, CSO of Palo Alto Networks, closed the day.
Cybrary’s CEO (and IRC board member) with IRC’s founder on where the community was heading.
Two SimSpace ranges ran an Individual Cyber Combat Skills Contest across both days, closing with the first War Gaming Awards Ceremony.
Reconstructed from the original conference agenda and speaker glossary, preserved from the legacy site.
Breakfast
Keynote: Michael Johnson, CISO, Capital One (formerly CIO, U.S. Department of Energy)
Ballroom Using Data from Bug Bounty Programs as Predictive Intelligence
Dustin Childs, Trend Micro Zero Day Initiative
Classroom 1 Using VirusTotal to Threat Hunt in Your Network
Brandon Levene, VirusTotal
Classroom 2 Protecting the Herd: Why Information Sharing Matters
Roberto Sanchez, Anomali
Cyber ranges Individual Cyber Combat Skills Contest begins
SimSpace ranges, running all day
Ballroom Prioritizing Incident Response Using Security Posture Assessment and Attack Surface Analysis
Chris Carlson, Qualys
Classroom 1 SOAR = Human Intelligence and Creativity at the Speed of Machine
Abhishek Narula, CyberSponse
Classroom 2 Deception Technology: Luxury Item or Life Line?
Tony Cole, Attivo Networks
Lunch
Main hall discussion panel
Ballroom Sharable Workflows
Paul Laskowski and BK Bharathram, IACD
Classroom 1 No Silver Bullet: Security Starts with the Data
Woody Walton, Elasticsearch
Classroom 2 Anatomy of a Business Email Compromise and Tools for Incident Response
Aaron Sherman, Braintrace
Product demonstrations and booth meetings
Ballroom Un-Hackable
Michael Echols, MAX Cybersecurity
Classroom 1 Cyber RangeKit: Validating EDR and EPP Solutions
Greg Hoglund, Symantec
Classroom 2 Lowering the Bar for Security Analyst Requirements Using Analytics and Orchestration
Steven Grossman, Bay Dynamics
Ending of day one: Rick Howard, CSO, Palo Alto Networks
Breakfast
Keynote: Ryan Corey (CEO, Cybrary, IRC board member) and Joseph Loomis (Founder and CTO, CyberSponse)
Ballroom Leveraging Breach Detection Systems within SOAR: Becoming Proactive before Incidents Happen
Howie Howerton, Trend Micro
Classroom 1 Huntible: Enterprise Threat Hunting Without the Overhead
Josh Day and Chris Rucci, Defense Point Security
Classroom 2 All About that Base: Cyber Incident Management Frameworks
Sean Spaniol and Jeff Blevins, Capital One
Ballroom Successful Threat Hunting Begins with Looking at Behaviors
Dean Sapp, Braintrace
Classroom 1 Leveraging Threat Data and the IR Process to Create Intelligence
Brandon Levene, VirusTotal
Classroom 2 Half-Witted, Scruffy Looking Bot Herder
Marita Fowler, Capital One
Lunch
Main hall discussion panel
Ballroom Strengthen Incident Response Through Hybrid IT Visibility and Security Control Validation
Chris Carlson, Qualys
Classroom 1 Gamification and Crowdsourcing of Defensive Playbooks Development
Mark Jaster, Four18 Intelligence
Classroom 2 Open Source Techniques for Network Defenders
Roberto Sanchez, Anomali
Ballroom Low-Regret Response Actions
Kim Watson, IACD
Classroom 1 Let’s Talk Technical: Malware Evasion and Detection
James Haughom, XOR Security
Classroom 2 Accelerating Orchestration with User Behavior and Risk Analytics
Steven Grossman, Bay Dynamics
Ending of day two and the War Gaming Awards Ceremony
Titles and companies as of the event.
FNU "BK" Bharathram
Business System Analyst, CyberSponse
Jeff Blevins
Manager, Cyber Incident Management, Capital One
Chris Carlson
VP Product Management, Qualys
Dustin Childs
Zero Day Initiative Communications, Trend Micro
Hugh Clapp
Senior Director, Defensive Cyber Operations, Symantec
Tony Cole
CTO, Attivo Networks
Ryan Corey
CEO and Co-Founder, Cybrary; IRC board member
Philippe Courtot
CEO, Qualys
Josh Day
Senior Hunter, Defense Point Security
Ed Cabrera
Chief Cybersecurity Officer, Trend Micro
Michael Echols
Founder and CEO, MAX Cybersecurity
Marita Fowler
Senior SOC Analyst, Capital One
Steven Grossman
VP of Strategy and Enablement, Bay Dynamics
James Haughom
IR Analyst and Malware Researcher, XOR Security
Greg Hoglund
VP of Enterprise Security, Symantec
Rick Howard
Chief Security Officer, Palo Alto Networks
Howie Howerton
Global Solutions Architect, Trend Micro
Mark Jaster
Founder and CEO, Four18 Intelligence
Michael Johnson
SVP and CISO, Capital One
Paul Laskowski
Cyber Engineer and Section Supervisor, IACD
Brandon Levene
Head of Applied Intelligence, VirusTotal
Joseph Loomis
Founder and CTO, CyberSponse
Abhishek Narula
Executive Vice President, CyberSponse
Boyden Rohner
Director of Cybersecurity Operations, DHS
Chris Rucci
Senior Hunter, Defense Point Security
Roberto Sanchez
Director of Threat and Sharing Analysis, Anomali
Dean Sapp
CISO, Braintrace
Aaron Sherman
Sr. Director of Cyber Threat Intelligence, Braintrace
Sean Spaniol
Director, Global Incident Response, Capital One
Eric VanDine
Global Cyber Security Operations Center Director, Capital One
Woody Walton
Solutions Architect, Elasticsearch
Kim Watson
Technical Director, IACD
The original IRC vendor rule: one sponsor per product category, community first, no selling from the stage.
IR18 moved the conference to the Renaissance Arlington Capital View in Crystal City and doubled down on hands-on work: a 600-person ballroom, two classrooms of vendor-led training with mandatory Q&A, and, new that year, two SimSpace cyber ranges running an individual combat skills contest across both days.
The speaker roster leaned into the practitioner frame: Capital One’s incident management team taught frameworks from the inside, VirusTotal and the Zero Day Initiative brought data, and the IACD programme shared workflow research. Registration stayed free and members only.
The hotel block ran at 179 dollars a night with discounted parking, and the event closed with the first War Gaming Awards Ceremony, a fixture that returned at IR19.