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General Information

Full Name Nikolaos Chrysaidos
Languages English, Greek

Education

  • 2022-2024
    MBA
    University of New York in Prague, CZ
    • Thesis - Impact of Large Language Models (LLMs) and Agents in CyberSecurity
  • 2012-2013
    MSc, Cybersecurity
    University of York, UK
    • Thesis - Behavioral Analysis on Detection of Android Botnets
    • Key Modules
      • Identity, Trust, Reputation and their Applications, Cryptography Theory and Applications, Rigour in the Development of High Assurance Systems, Networks and Communications Security (Threats, Attacks and Countermeasures), Malware and Other Malfeasance
  • 2009-2012
    BSc (Hons), Computing
    Swansea University, UK
    • Thesis - Electronic Attendance - Electronic Attendance is both an ASP.NET web service and an Android mobile application, which focuses on the automatic registration of the student presence during lectures/classes.
    • Key Modules
      • Software Engineering (Java, C++), RDBMS II, Distributed Systems, Experts Systems, Project Management, Data Structure, Probability & Statistics, Communication & Telematics, MIS & E-Commerce

Work Experience

  • Sept 2024 - Now
    Independent Threat Intelligence & AI Red Teaming Consultant
    Independent Consultant
    • Conducting threat modelling and TTP analysis for AI products, mapping realistic attacker goals, required capabilities, and likely impact vectors to inform risk-based defenses.
    • Designing and executing comprehensive red-team engagements against large language models (LLMs), including adversarial prompt engineering, and scenario-based jailbreak testing to surface policy, safety, and logic bypasses.
  • May 2023 - Sept 2024
    Head, Threat Intelligence & Defense
    Early-stage Cybersecurity Startup
    • Reported directly to CTO and CEO, providing strategic leadership for OSINT and Engineering teams todeliver cutting-edge cybersecurity solutions for the Dark Web OSINT platform.
    • Directed the development of the internal OSINT as a Service (OaaS) stack (crawling, processing, reporting)
    • Conducted comprehensive Dark Web analysis and uncovered new breaches, leaks, and extracted vital threat intelligence data
    • Identified and bridging intelligence gaps through the proposal and implementation of innovative tools and research initiatives
  • July 2019 - Dec 2022
    Head, Threat Intelligence Platforms
    Avast
    • Directed the development and long-term strategic planning of Avast’s unified internal & public global threat intelligence platforms (TIPs). Delivered the core internal threat intelligence platform (TIP) used by over 200 users, including data scientists, malware/threat analysts, hunters, operators and SOC analysts.
    • Focused on stakeholders' uses-cases, in operations, threat intelligence, big data automation, and other internal research areas. Based on each use case the team developed new solutions and features
    • Unified and integrated services, from other teams, in the platform focused on one common UI/UX for everyone. Standardized it as the core platform for everyone to build their proof-of-concept (PoC) threat services, increasing innovation and reducing silos between teams.
    • Lead the project planning and development of our STIX2.1/TAXII2.1 pipeline and mobile MITRE ATT&CK integration.
    • Co-led the adoption, organization, and project planning of Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) in the CTO department, improving departments’ goal-setting, tracking, and decision-making.
  • Dec 2015 - Jul 2019
    Head, Mobile Threats & Security
    Avast
    • Directed the development of Avast’s mobile threat intelligence platforms (internal & public) - APKLab.io while focusing on threat intelligence on big regions (Russia, China, and the US). The public version is now being used by more than 500 researchers globally and almost 2M user queries were processed.
    • Guided geographically dispersed teams for new solutions and projects based on the latest advanced mobile threats, security concerns, and academic research to ensure that our mobile users (50M+) will consistently receive state-of-the-art protection. Mentored and trained junior malware analysts to ensure the team was up-to-date and focused on the latest research & academic topics.
    • Coordinated and negotiated procedures for the development and tuning of systems for OEM partnerships.
    • Optimized (feature selection, training, and review) mobile machine learning (ML) models in-cooperation with data scientists. Increasing, as a result, AV-TEST scores and awards.
    • Built connections and exchanged knowledge with related companies at conferences and meet-ups that as a result drove the team to stay up to date with the latest industry developments.
    • Published technical articles in the corporation's blog on the latest mobile threats and security incidents positioning the company as thought leader in the industry and increased media coverage from journalists and industry publications.
    • Attended NATO (CCDCOE) Cyber Coalition 2016 as a team leader and completed mobile security-related exercises.
  • Feb 2014 - Dec 2015
    Mobile Malware & Security Analyst
    Avast
    • Conducted reverse engineering, static analysis (IDA, Smali/Baksmali, JEB, JD) and dynamic analysis (Droidbox, Logcat, Wireshark, Fiddler, GikDbg) on binaries and handsets.
    • Performed penetration testing and forensic analysis on handsets and smartwatches (Android)
    • Developed internal solutions for faster generation of detections for mobile threats
    • Created detection signatures and YARA rules for mobile threats.