Initial Access in 2026 – The Power of the Spoken Word (<– add to your schedule)
A light/ medium technical talk discussing modern techniques and challenges to red team initial access.
Ariyan Suroosh:
Ariyan Bakhti-Suroosh is a Principal Security Consultant at Rotas Security, specializing in offensive security, social engineering, and physical facility penetration testing. With over seven years of experience, Ariyan has led enterprise-scale penetration tests, advanced adversary simulations, and purple team assessments.
He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Information Security from the University of Richmond (Summa Cum Laude) and is a Certified Red Team Operator (CRTO). Ariyan has delivered talks at SANS Hackfest, RVASEC 2024, Optiv’s Source Zero Conference, and was the keynote speaker at COV IS 2024. Ariyan was also the recipient of Optiv’s President Club 2023 and the Green Jacket award for excellence in delivery. He has developed training resources on all facets of penetration testing with a focus on physical facility penetration tests and badge cloning.
Mike Bailey:
Mike brings nearly three decades of diverse experience spanning private industry, academia, U.S. government, and the financial sector. His focus is cybersecurity, with deep expertise in adversarial threat simulation, offensive and defensive security, and advanced technical assessments. Mike is an active contributor to the security community and has been a featured speaker at multiple conferences, presenting on threat research and network security.