Sashank Dara received his PhD in cybersecurity from IIIT-Bangalore in the area of applied cryptography and threat intelligence. He’s an expert cybersecurity technologist with more than 17 years of experience in the field, including as a consultant advisor for Manipal Global Education Services’ cybersecurity programs and as a security technology and strategy advisor for security startups including Appknox, Haltdos, and SecurityJourney.com. He remains a trusted information security consultant and advisor for top companies in EdTech, IT/ITes, academia, and real estate. He’s the co-inventor of 5 U.S. patents (and 3 IETF drafts) in the areas of cloud, SDN, and NFV security, and he’s published more than a dozen research papers at IEEE, LNCS conferences in the areas of cloud security, privacy, cryptography, and threat intelligence. A prolific speaker at security conferences and invited talks, Dara is currently the CTO and co-founder of Seconize, an award-winning cybersecurity startup pioneering a cyber risk and compliance management SaaS product suite.