Tribe of Hackers

53Stephen A. Ridley

“There comes a point in every great project when you get goosebumps and have that epiphany moment. I love that feeling; I’m addicted to it.”

Twitter: @s7ephen • Website: iot.security

Stephen A. Ridley is a security researcher with more than 10 years of experience in software development, software security, and reverse engineering. In the last few years, he has spoken on these topics and presented his research on every continent except Antarctica. Stephen and his work have been featured on NPR and NBC, as well as in Wired, The Washington Post, Fast Company, VentureBeat, Slashdot, The Register, and other publications. Stephen has authored a number of information security articles and co-written several texts. The most recent of these is Android Hacker’s Handbook, published by John Wiley & Sons. He has guest lectured at NYU, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), Dartmouth, and other universities on the subject of software exploitation and reverse engineering. Stephen is on the programming/review committees of USENIX WOOT, Securing Smart Cities, and BuildItSecure.ly. He also serves on the board of IndySci.org, a California 501(c)(3) nonprofit devoted to making “open source” pharmaceuticals a reality.

If there is one myth that you could debunk in cybersecurity, what would it be?

From a big-picture perspective, I think the biggest myth is more of this pervasive ...