1NTERRUPT was created to connect, share, and foster innovative communities. We have a passion for technology, design, and sharing what we love.
Marc Blackmer, Cisco Systems/ 1NTERRUPT
Marc Blackmer is a technologist, blogger, speaker, and product marketing manager for Cisco Systems where his areas of focus have included IoT cyber security, threat intelligence, and endpoint security. His start in technology came in his 20s when he and a friend’s father built Marc’s first computer. After that, there was no turning back.
He is a graduate of Burncoat High School and is an avid learner, currently taking an online coding program in his “spare time.” He is the third generation to own his home in Worcester.
Marc is a father, musician, photographer, avid traveler, advisor for BonBillo (a social impact incubator), a steering committee member for the Central Massachusetts STEM Network, and the founder of 1NTERRUPT.
Dan Thiffault, BookBub/1NTERRUPT
Dan Thiffault has over 10 years experience developing, architecting, and running large-scale web sites. He has built PCI-compliant sites from the ground up while keeping 99.95% up times.
Dan is currently working as a software engineer with Cambridge-based BookBub. He is a graduate of Mass Academy and WPI.
@DanThiffault
Michelle May, Atelier ID Global/1NTERRUPT
Michelle May is a graphic designer, artist, and founder of Cirque du Noir, a Worcester-based fundraiser that celebrates Worcester’s creative culture. She is also a co-founder of Atelier ID Global, a design, branding, and marketing firm.
@MichelleLMay
placeholder
Heading
Heading
Kathryn Kun, Akamai Technologies
Kathryn T. Kun directs the Adversarial Resilience group at Akamai Technologies, where she applies systems thinking approaches to global-scale information systems. Akamai Technologies deploys and manages hundreds of thousands of computer systems in 2500 data-centers around the globe, serving approximately one-third of all global web traffic. To ensure the resilience of this remarkably complex system against adversaries ranging from ‘script kiddie’ to ‘advanced persistent threat’, Ms. Kun draws upon her industrial background in chemical engineering and automated processes to develop and implement system-theoretic and system-wide approaches. By applying techniques that regard the technology, the humans behind it, and the business that runs on it as a single, complex control structure, she and her team guide Akamai to the safest reasonable designs and, in turn, produce a safer Internet.
Ms. Kun is especially proud of developing Akamai’s risk-assessment and risk-management techniques, which eschew probabilistic reasoning in favor of causal-chains and catastrophe resilience. Her emphasis on the human aspects of security have transformed the Adversarial Resilience group into a trusted and valued advisor — one sought out at all stages of system development by product groups across the company.
Ms. Kun has a BS in Chemical Engineering and a BA in Philosophy, both from University of Pittsburgh. Prior to joining Akamai, she served as an engineer at Delphi and Kohler Co. Outside of work, she knits and is studying the complex system known as her preschool daughter.
Mike Kun, Akamai Technologies
Mike Kun is a manager in Akamai’s information Security department and focuses on helping customers understand the risks of using Akamai. Akamai’s platform is a sprawling system of multiple networks and technologies built as an overly of the Internet. It’s important that both Akamai and its customers understand the potential risks in using the platform, both for their own security considerations and for compliance reasons.
Additionally, he uses Open Source Intelligence techniques to track and surveil known attack groups on the internet and evaluate their capabilities, tactics, techniques and procedures. He’s helped fight attacks by the Al Quaasam Cyber Fighters, Syrian Electronic Army, Anonymous, and several nation-state attackers.
Mr. Kun has been at Akamai for ten years and has been involved in both corporate security and platform security. He has experience with incident response, forensics, intelligence gathering and attack response. He enjoys learning about.
When not working, Mr. Kun enjoys PC gaming, circus aerials, rock climbing, scuba diving and fire juggling. Most of these are less dangerous and stressful then what goes on the Internet.
Jacob Berry, Cybereason/Happy Hacker Society
Jacob Berry is an Information Security Consultant with SecureWorks‘ global consulting practice specializing in supporting enterprise customers security operations and incident response programs.
Jacob champions Happy Hacker Society – Worcester’s monthly technology and InfoSec meetup, Boston 2600, and volunteers as network operator for the biennial Hackers On Planet Earth (HOPE) conference.
When away from the keyboard, Jacob can be found at Worcester’s makerspace, Technocopia, or on a motorcycle adventure in the New England mountains.
Sarah Gibson, Veracode
Sarah Gibson is an application security consultant who focuses on working with developers to understand and fix the security issues within their code. With a focus on showing developers how secure code is good code. She has been working in application security testing for the past six years and enjoys poking at the internet.
