[Speakers]
Adversary Village at
DEF CON 34

Bryson Bort

Founder and CEO of SCYTHE | GRIMM | Co-Founder of ICS Village

Bryson is the Founder of SCYTHE, a start-up building a next generation attack emulation platform, and GRIMM, a cybersecurity consultancy, and Co-Founder of the ICS Village, a non-profit advancing awareness of industrial control system security. He is a Senior Fellow with the Atlantic Council's Cyber Statecraft Initiative, the National Security Institute, and an Advisor to the Army Cyber Institute. As a U.S. Army Officer, he served as a Battle Captain and Brigade Engineering Officer in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom before leaving the Army as a Captain. He was recognized as one of the Top 50 in Cyber in 2020 by Business Insider. Bryson received his Bachelor of Science in Computer Science with honors from the United States Military Academy at West Point. He holds a Master's Degree in Telecommunications Management from the University of Maryland, a Master's in Business Administration from the University of Florida, and completed graduate studies in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Texas.

Adversary Village kick-off keynote

10:00-10:45 PDT | Friday, Aug 7th 2026 | Adversary Village Workshop Stage, Las Vegas Convention Center
Adversary Philosophy

Speaking with: Abhijith B R, Sanne Maasakkers, Adam Pennington

Panel Discussion: 6 years of Adversary Village! Keeping up with the adversaries and why it takes a village

14:00-14:45 PDT | Friday, Aug 7th 2026 | DEF CON Creator Stage 3, Las Vegas Convention Center
Panel Discussion

Abstract

Six years ago, Adversary Village started as a simple idea, give the people who study adversaries and adversarial tradecraft a place to call home. What grew out of it was something bigger than any of us expected. A community of offensive security professionals, adversary simulation and emulation specialists, threat researchers, tool builders, philosophers and the endlessly curious, all showing up to share what they know about thinking and acting like the adversary. Year after year the Village has been the place to dig into real adversary tradecraft, offensive TTPs, simulation and emulation techniques, hands-on labs, and the tools that make it all work. This panel looks back at how far we have come and forward at where we are headed. Adversaries never stop evolving, from state-sponsored operators running long, patient campaigns to ransomware crews and everyone in between, and neither can we. We will talk about how the Village has kept pace in a realm that reinvents itself every year, how the craft of adversary simulation and emulation has matured into a discipline of its own, and why faithfully replicating real adversary tradecraft has become essential to testing whether our defenses actually work.


We will get into why keeping up is a job no single person or team can do alone, and how a community that trades knowledge freely ends up being the sharpest edge we have got. Most of all, we will celebrate the people who built this, the volunteers, the speakers, the first timers who became regulars. Six years in one thing is clearer than ever! It takes a village to keep up with the adversaries, whether they are nation-state actors, criminal groups, or threats we have not even named yet. Come raise a glass with us and help shape what the next six years look like.

Speaking with: Abhijith B R, Anant Shrivastava

Agency.


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