About us
RVAsec is a community built around cybersecurity based in Richmond, Virginia, but has members far beyond the greater mid-Atlantic region. We bring together professionals, students, and enthusiasts who care about learning, connecting, and growing together—whether you're deep into the industry or just getting started.
Yearly Conference:
RVAsec is Virginia’s premier cybersecurity conference, drawing top speakers, leading vendors, and hundreds of passionate attendees from across the mid-Atlantic.
Held every June in Richmond, the event features:
- High-impact keynotes from industry leaders
- Hands-on activities like Capture the Flag (CTF) and lockpicking village
- A wide range of technical and business-focused talks
- Community-building, networking, and plenty of hallway conversations
📍 The Marriott Richmond
📅 June 9–10, 2026
🔗 https://rvasec.com
Meetups:
Monthly Social: The heartbeat of RVAsec. No talks, no slides—just a relaxed chance to connect in the local security scene over drinks and good conversation. Everyone’s welcome, from seasoned pros to the security-curious. Organized by Jake Kouns and Chris Sullo.
Deep Dives: Topic-focused sessions designed by and for the community: hands-on workshops, lightning talks, roundtables, live demos, and the occasional vendor presentation. Come to learn, share, and sharpen your craft. Organized by Austin McNett.
Security Fundamentals: Beginner-friendly meetups on Saturdays that demystify security roles and concepts, with simple labs, fundamentals, and practical next steps. Ideal for students, career switchers, and IT/general tech folks exploring security. Organized by Will Roe.
RVAsec YouTube Channel:
All videos from our yearly conferences can be found on our YouTube channel.
RVAsec Discord Community:
Join our community and connect on topics that interest you! https://discord.gg/gjD9dhBStN
Upcoming events
14
RVAsec SecFun - Networking Essentials
Tech For Troops, 4840 Waller Rd, Richmond, VA, USPlease join the RVASec Discord for more information: RVAsec Discord
Topic: Please see Discord Server for more information.
Schedule:
9:30am - 9:45am: arrival and general socializing
9:45am - 10:45am: Presentation
10:45am - 11:00am: Self-Introductions
11:00am - 12:30pm: Discussion, practice, and socializeAll times are estimated
11 attendees
RVAsec Deep Dive - August
Ours, 2309 W Main St., Richmond, VA, US{You must be registered to attend this event.}
Last month we took over the ECPI auditorium with Nguyen Nguyen. This month we’re back home at Ours with a double feature, and both talks live on the forensics side of the house.
First up: Malachi Walker, Senior Security Advisor at DomainTools, coming down from the DC area with “DNS as Forensic Gold.” DNS is ubiquitous, it’s available, it holds domains and IP addresses, and it’s one of the earliest signals of traffic you’ll get in an investigation. Malachi will make the case for why it’s forensic gold, then put it to work with a walkthrough of a real malware investigation, one as recent as he can get his hands on before the 13th. His background runs from DNS to crime and conflict in cyberspace to security governance and program design, with prior stops at FTI Consulting’s cybersecurity practice and WhiteHawk. He holds a Master’s from Virginia Tech with a concentration in Cybersecurity Management.
Then: Hala Ali presents “Post-Incident Runtime SBOM Generation from Python Memory.” SBOMs built from package metadata, source files, or build artifacts don’t always match what actually loads and runs, especially in a dynamic ecosystem like Python. Hala will walk through MEM-SBOM, a memory forensics framework that generates runtime SBOMs directly from Python process memory: recovering loaded modules, resolving package versions, reconstructing dependency relationships, and performing function-level vulnerability reachability analysis, tested against 51 real-world Python applications. Hala completed her Ph.D. in Computer Science at VCU, where her research covers memory forensics, malware analysis, and software supply chain security. She’s a Best Paper Award winner at DFRWS USA 2025, a U.S. Cyber Command Defender Award recipient, and has presented at DEF CON AI Village, Black Hat Arsenal, PyCon US, BSides LV, and WiCyS.
As always, we’ll leave time for questions and open discussion. Come learn something, meet some people, and hang out with RVAsec!
Location:
• Ours (2309 W Main St)Agenda:
• 6:00 PM – Doors open, socializing & refreshments• 6:30 PM – Malachi Walker: DNS as Forensic Gold
• 7:20 PM – Break
• 7:30 PM – Hala Ali: Post-Incident Runtime SBOM Generation from Python Memory
• 8:30 PM – Wrap up and open conversation
Capacity:
We expect roughly 40 seats. If you sign up, please show up; if something comes up, no problem, but cancel or update ASAP so someone else can take the spot.18 attendeesRVAsec SecFun - TBD
Tech For Troops, 4840 Waller Rd, Richmond, VA, USPlease join the RVASec Discord for more information: RVAsec Discord
Topic: Please see Discord Server for more information.
Schedule:
9:30am - 9:45am: arrival and general socializing
9:45am - 10:45am: Presentation
10:45am - 11:00am: Self-Introductions
11:00am - 12:30pm: Discussion, practice, and socializeAll times are estimated
2 attendees
Past events
45
