▸ ABOUT

About

I'm Marba$. I spend my time breaking things on purpose, building tools, and trying to get security knowledge to the people who don't usually get invited to the table.

Mostly, though, I just love this work. Information security is full of genuinely cool problems, and I feel privileged that I get to spend my days pulling them apart and figuring out how things really work. There's always something new to be curious about, and I still get a kick out of every one of them.

Over the years that's looked like vulnerability research (a couple of CVEs I'm fond of live in the blog), hardware hacking, and a lot of community work here in Maine and beyond.

I also wrote a book on it: The Vulnerability Researcher's Handbook (Packt, 2023), a guide to discovering, reporting, and publishing security vulnerabilities.

What I'm involved with

DirigoSec is the Maine nonprofit I preside over. It's the home and funding body for the community work below. Hack local, build together.
BSides Maine is where a lot of my energy goes. I founded it and lead the organizing, bringing an accessible, community-run security conference to Maine.
DC207 is the DEF CON Group covering Maine, and I run it. Local folks, regular hangs, all skill levels welcome.
As an OffSec Ambassador, I help people find their footing in offensive security training and certification.
pwnagotchi.com and Phreak Boutique are my personal projects, where I keep the gear, the goods, and the experiments. pwnagotchi.com is the oldest pwnagotchi seller around, with over 8,500 shipped. Their proceeds help fund DC207 and DirigoSec's programs, so buying my weird hardware keeps the lights on for the community too.

Why security?

Earlier in my career I almost didn't get into security at all. Not because the work was intimidating, but because the people were. So much of the field looked like sharp edges and sharper egos, a room I figured I'd never be welcome in.

Turns out it doesn't have to be that way, and sometimes the only thing that changes it is someone deciding to be the difference. That's what the talks, the groups, the mentorship, and the write-ups are really for: building the kind of security world I wish I'd walked into. You have to build the world you want to see. Or, you know, something like that.

Off the clock

There's a whole person behind the blue monster. I'm married to my wonderful husband, and the two of us are lucky enough to call Maine home. I love it here, genuinely and a little unreasonably: the coast, the woods, the stubborn beauty of a place that does things its own way, and the people who make it home. That's a big part of why I pour so much into building community here. When you love somewhere this much, you want it to have room for everyone, so you prop a few doors open.

Me and my husband, arms around each other on a stone terrace above Lake Como, mountains and water behind us — Me and my favorite person, Lake Como.

We also share the house with a small tribunal of cats who supervise every hardware project I start and approve of exactly none of them. They are, however, excellent at sitting on documentation at the precise moment I need it.

Dino, a black cat with bright yellow eyes, lounging on top of a duffel bag — Management: Dino, and Louis Thanksgiving (yes, that's his full name).

Louis Thanksgiving, an orange tabby, fast asleep belly-up on the floor — Management: Dino, and Louis Thanksgiving (yes, that's his full name).

So if you came for the CVEs, welcome. But if you stick around to talk about cats, boxes that go beep, or where to find a decent lobster roll, honestly, even better.

Get in touch

You can reach me at root@marbasec.com, or find me around the usual security community spaces.