Every SAINTCON opens with one or more keynote speakers chosen to set the tone for the year. Below is the lineup that’s stood at the SAINTCON podium across more than a decade of conferences. Speaker bios and links are preserved on each year’s archived site (linked from the Archives page).
2025
- John Strand. Founder of Black Hills Information Security; SANS instructor. Long-tenured voice in offensive security and pen-testing curriculum.
- Jeff Moss. Founder of DEF CON and Black Hat. Cybersecurity advisor to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and ICANN.
- John Hammond. Cybersecurity researcher with Huntress; prolific educator on YouTube and CTF circles.
2024
- Jack Rhysider. Creator and host of Darknet Diaries, the long-running podcast on hacker stories and the cybersecurity underworld.
- Amanda Berlin. Co-founder of Mental Health Hackers and co-host of the Brakeing Down Security podcast.
- Dave Kennedy. Founder of TrustedSec and Binary Defense; creator of the Social-Engineer Toolkit (SET).
2023
- Nicole Beckwith. Cybercrime investigator and former police officer; advocate for connecting law enforcement and the security community.
- Joe Grand. Hardware hacker and engineer; founding member of L0pht Heavy Industries; host of Joe Grand’s Hardware Hacking Podcast.
2022
- Deviant Ollam. Physical security researcher; member of TOOOL (The Open Organisation Of Lockpickers).
- Stephanie “Snow” Carruthers. Chief People Hacker at IBM X-Force Red; social engineering specialist.
- Jayson E. Street. Author, hacker, world traveler; former VP of InfoSec at SphereNY.
2021
- LockPickingLawyer. Recovering business litigator turned full-time covert-entry researcher and YouTube educator.
2020
The 2020 conference ran fully virtual due to COVID-19. The keynote slot for that year is preserved in the 2020 archive.
2019
- Sherri Davidoff. CEO of LMG Security and BrightWise; cybersecurity author and incident-response trainer.
- Russ Rogers (return appearance, see 2016).
- Rachel Tobac. CEO of SocialProof Security; three-time DEF CON Social Engineering CTF winner.
2018
- Bonnie Anderson. Information Systems Department chair at the BYU Marriott School of Business; researcher on neuroscience and security.
- Richard Thieme. Author and professional speaker on the human side of cybersecurity and intelligence.
2017
- Ryan Clarke. DEF CON Mystery Challenge creator and badge designer.
- Melanie Ensign. Security and privacy communications strategist; former head of communications for security and privacy at Uber.
- Neil Wyler “Grifter”. Threat hunter and incident responder; longtime DEF CON Network Operations Center (NOC) lead.
2016
- Russ Rogers. Long-tenured DEF CON staffer (Chief of Operations through 2016); contributor to Microsoft’s Detection and Response Team. Returned to keynote SAINTCON in 2019.
- Clutch and Crypt. Researchers and DEF CON contributors.
- Georgia Weidman. Penetration tester; founder of Bulb Security and Shevirah; author of Penetration Testing: A Hands-On Introduction to Hacking.
2015
- Dan Bowden
- Don Welch
- Seth Johnson
- Theresa Semmens
- Thomas Cheatham
- Troy Jessup (Jup1t3r). SAINTCON committee chairman and longtime UtahSAINT lead.
Earlier conferences (pre-2015) had their own keynote traditions. If you spoke or recall a keynote from those years and want to fill in a gap, drop a note in Discord.
