Overview

Gender

male

Austin started his career in the early 2000’s as a software developer working on Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) products for Schneider Electric. In 2006, Austin launched a boutique ICS Cybersecurity consulting company in Calgary, Alberta Canada called Synergist SCADA Inc. Synergist SCADA provided system integration and cybersecurity for power plants, pipelines and other critical assets around the world. In 2013 Synergist was acquired by Cimation, a leader in industrial automation and cybersecurity consulting based in Houston Texas. Cimation was later acquired by Accenture in 2015. In 2016, Austin joined San Diego Gas and Electric (SDG&E) as a Senior ICS/SCADA Cybersecurity Engineer. At SDG&E, Austin provided security assessment and oversight on for Transmission, Distribution, Generation, Electric Vehicle andDERMS projects. Austin joined Dragos in 2018 as a Principal ICS Security Analyst and is part of the Dragos Threat Operations Center (TOC).

Austin is a published author with two books on PLC Programming:

Learning RSLogix 5000 – PACKT Publishing – ISBN 9781784396039 – 2015

PLC Programming RSLogix 5000 – PACKT Publishing – ISBN 1849698449 – 2013

Austin was nominated by Shell for his ICS Cybersecurity program contributions for the SANS Cybersecurity Difference Maker 2015 Award and won.

He is also the president of San Diego Chapter for Control System Cybersecurity Association International (CS2AI) and founder of the Calgary, Alberta chapter.

In August 2018, Austin and his teammate DMS won the HACK THE PLAN(3)T hacking competition at DEFCON and were awarded the DEFCON UBER black badge.