Dr. Ensar Seker is Vice President of Research and CISO at SOCRadar. A former NATO CCDCOE national representative and TÜBİTAK BİLGEM senior researcher, he has led 495 penetration-test and red-team projects and more than 40 ransomware negotiations as a professional negotiator.
Dr. Ensar Seker is Vice President of Research and CISO at SOCRadar. A former NATO CCDCOE national representative and TÜBİTAK BİLGEM senior researcher, he has led 495 penetration-test and red-team projects and more than 40 ransomware negotiations as a professional negotiator.~ / cv $ cat resume.md
Curriculum vitae
Dr. Ensar Seker
Vice President of Research & Chief Information Security Officer at SOCRadar. 16+ years across industry, government and NATO.
$ stat --summary ./cv
roles 8
degrees PhD · MSc · BSc
based Washington, D.C.
status ● current
cat bio.txt
Bio, ready to use.
Dr. Ensar Seker is a cybersecurity executive, researcher and speaker. He serves as Vice President of Research and Chief Information Security Officer at SOCRadar, where he also acts as Data Protection Officer, Business Continuity Manager and Head of IT. His career spans 16+ years across industry, government and NATO. Highlights include serving as a national representative and researcher at the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence, leading EU projects at TÜBİTAK BİLGEM, and running penetration-testing and SOC teams that delivered more than 500 engagements. He has been involved in 40+ ransomware negotiations. He holds a PhD in Information and Communication Technology from TalTech (2024). He serves on the board of the Cyber Threat Alliance, chairs the CSA Virginia Chapter, and has spoken at TEDx, FIRST, SANS, FS-ISAC and CYBERWARCON.
Dr. Ensar Seker is a cybersecurity executive, researcher and speaker. He serves as Vice President of Research and Chief Information Security Officer at SOCRadar, where he also acts as Data Protection Officer, Business Continuity Manager and Head of IT. His career spans 16+ years across industry, government and NATO. Highlights include serving as a national representative and researcher at the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence, leading EU projects at TÜBİTAK BİLGEM, and running penetration-testing and SOC teams that delivered more than 500 engagements. He has been involved in 40+ ransomware negotiations. He holds a PhD in Information and Communication Technology from TalTech (2024). He serves on the board of the Cyber Threat Alliance, chairs the CSA Virginia Chapter, and has spoken at TEDx, FIRST, SANS, FS-ISAC and CYBERWARCON.40+ransomware negotiations
495pentest & red-team projects
42SOC projects
13+academic publications
600+courses taught
16+years of experience
git log --career
Experience.
January 2022 – present · Washington, D.C., USA
Vice President of Research & Chief Information Security Officer
SOCRadar
SOCRadar is an extended threat intelligence platform that gives organizations an early-warning system against cyber threats.
Security leadership (CISO)
- Lead risk management, governance, compliance and security operations across the company.
- Own SOCRadar’s compliance and assurance programs:
- SOC 2 and ISO 27001 certification and audit cycles.
- CSA STAR registry submission.
- Cyber Essentials certification.
- The public Trust Center.
- Customer and prospect security questionnaires and due-diligence reviews.
- Direct the Security Operations Center team, covering detection, response and threat management.
- Run regular IT and cybersecurity risk assessments, internal audits and periodic penetration tests.
- Own the security stack: SentinelOne XDR and other EDR platforms, Carbon Black, Kandji MDM (now Iru), SecFusion, SOCRadar CTI, Google Chronicle, Barracuda, Microsoft 365, Azure AD and Google Cloud Platform.
- Run the security-awareness program, including phishing-simulation platforms.
- Define the cloud security strategy for Azure and Google Cloud.
- Report security posture and risk to the board; manage the security and research budgets.
Research
- Lead SOCRadar’s research team and build a culture of original, publishable threat research.
- Build research partnerships with industry, academia and government.
- Share findings through publications, lectures, workshops, webinars and conference talks; support technology transfer and the commercialization of research.
Ransomware negotiation
- Professional ransomware negotiator: involved in 40+ ransomware negotiations, advising victims on adversary engagement, communication strategy and recovery decisions.
Data Protection Officer (DPO)
- Own the GDPR data-protection strategy: privacy assessments, DPIA advice, staff training, and acting as the point of contact for supervisory authorities.
- Work across teams to prevent breaches and manage them if they happen.
Business Continuity Manager (BCM)
- Build and maintain the business-continuity and disaster-recovery programs: business impact analyses, risk assessments, drills and staff training.
- Lead the response during a crisis to keep disruption to a minimum.
Head of IT
- Own IT strategy, budget, infrastructure and the IT team.
- Partner with department heads on technology that supports business goals.
Customer-facing: sales and PR
- Support sales as a solutions engineer, explaining complex technical concepts to customers with first-hand knowledge of the pain points CISOs face.
- Support PR and communications as a company spokesperson: media commentary, threat-research announcements and thought leadership.
November 2020 – April 2022 · Istanbul, Türkiye
Product Manager
Cyber Scorecard
Held concurrently with the DefenseIn, BGA Security and SOCRadar roles
Cyber Scorecard is a startup cyber-risk platform that helps organizations identify, analyze, quantify and communicate cyber risk, from the boardroom to the front line.
- Shaped the product around a systematic way to identify, analyze, quantify and communicate risk.
- Turned customer feedback into product priorities and enhancement requests for the development team.
- Expanded the standards library beyond NIST CSF, CIS 18 and ISO 27001 to include COBIT, PCI DSS, SOC 2 and SWIFT CSP.
- Designed intuitive features that make complex security concepts accessible to non-technical users.
June 2021 – December 2021 · Istanbul, Türkiye
CISO, Pentest Team Manager & Red Team Lead
BGA Security
BGA Security is a cybersecurity firm founded in 2008, with a team of 50 certified professionals serving clients in 3 countries (Türkiye, Azerbaijan and the USA).
- Led the penetration-testing and red-team practice, completing 495 pentest and red-team projects in 7 months.
- Delivered tailored security programs for some of Türkiye’s leading institutions.
- Implemented threat-intelligence platforms (Insight, Recorded Future, SOCRadar, Digital Shadows) and contributed to the development of the SOCRadar CTI platform.
- Deployed EDR/MDR solutions (Carbon Black, FireEye, SentinelOne) and SIEM/SOAR (QRadar, Wazuh).
- Ran risk, compliance and third-party risk programs (Cyber Scorecard, Black Kite) and vulnerability management (SecFusion).
- Advised top executives, proposed security budgets, and reported key risks and safeguards to management.
November 2020 – June 2021 · Istanbul, Türkiye
SOC Team Manager
DefenseIn
DefenseIn, founded in 2017, provides cybersecurity consultancy, training and APT testing.
- Managed the blue team and delivered 42 SOC projects.
- Led log and network-traffic analysis to detect malicious activity and breaches.
- Ran security-control audits and digital-footprint / risk-intelligence assessments.
- Put preventive controls in place and drove remediation of discovered vulnerabilities.
June 2015 – October 2020 · Kocaeli, Türkiye
Senior Researcher
TÜBİTAK BİLGEM
TÜBİTAK is Türkiye’s premier research agency, with 5,000+ researchers across 15 institutes.
- Headed EU projects for BİLGEM, during which TÜBİTAK submitted 120+ project applications with an 80% acceptance rate.
- Led the Cyber Training Unit at the Cyber Security Institute; with NATO Science for Peace and Security funding, trained the armed forces of 4 nations: Azerbaijan, Jordan, Tunisia and Qatar.
- Researched critical-infrastructure security and resilience.
- Worked as a penetration tester at the Cyber Security Institute.
- Evaluated products at the National Common Criteria Lab and ran the associated risk analyses.
September 2016 – June 2018 · Tallinn, Estonia
National Representative & Researcher
NATO CCDCOE
The NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence brought together 20 nations at the time. It is known for the Tallinn Manual 2.0, for Locked Shields (the world’s largest live-fire cyber-defence exercise) and for the CyCon conference.
- Helped design and run the Locked Shields and Crossed Swords exercises, playing on the green, red and white teams.
- Served as an academic reviewer for CyCon.
- Supported CCDCOE training courses and materials.
- Researched critical-infrastructure and OT security within NATO projects.
June 2013 – June 2015 · Ankara, Türkiye
Head of IT Department
Turkish Petroleum (TPAO)
TPAO is Türkiye’s national oil company, with ₺3 billion in registered capital.
- Directed IT and data-processing operations, policies and standards.
- Aligned system requirements, costs and timelines with business leaders.
- Managed IT staff and contractors across software, networks and telecom.
- Owned the IT budget and expenditure.
April 2010 – March 2013 · New York, USA
IT Consultant
Solaris Investment Inc.
Solaris is an investment firm with 50+ employees and multiple branches across New York City.
- Built a secure, cloud-based intranet (Joomla) that gave staff anywhere-access to files, calendars and notifications.
- Secured the inter-branch network with Juniper SRX and Cisco VoIP.
- Improved search visibility using Google Search Console, Google Analytics and DMOZ.
- Delivered several capital projects ahead of schedule and within budget.
ls ./education
Education.
PhD, Information and Communication Technology
Tallinn University of Technology (TalTech) · Tallinn, Estonia
January 2017 – June 2024 · EQF Level 8
MSc, Electrical and Computer Engineering
New York Institute of Technology · New York, USA
September 2010 – July 2012 · EQF Level 7
BSc, Electrical and Computer Engineering
New York Institute of Technology · New York, USA
January 2007 – June 2010 · EQF Level 6
AI for Leaders
Harvard Business School Online · Boston, USA
February 2026 · Certificate program (non-degree)
grep -i roles ./community
Leadership & affiliations.
- Board Member
- Cyber Threat Alliance
- Chair
- CSA (Cloud Security Alliance) Virginia Chapter
- Treasurer
- IEEE Computer Society, Washington DC Section
- Subject-Matter Expert
- NATO Industrial Advisory Group (NIAG), advising NATO HQ on cyberspace challenges
- Expert Evaluator
- European Commission (127+ projects evaluated)
- Cybercrime expert member
- Europol EC3
- Mentor
- Women4Cyber Mentorship Programme (2025)
- Member
- OWASP Foundation · FBI CISO Academy Alumni Association
which --all tools
Tools & frameworks.
EDR / XDR & endpoint
- SentinelOne XDR
- Carbon Black
- FireEye
- Kandji MDM (Iru)
SIEM / SOAR
- Google Chronicle
- QRadar
- Wazuh
Threat intelligence
- SOCRadar CTI
- Recorded Future
- Digital Shadows
- Insight
Risk & vulnerability
- SecFusion
- Black Kite
- Cyber Scorecard
Cloud & identity
- Microsoft 365
- Azure AD
- Google Cloud Platform
- Barracuda
Frameworks
- ISO 27001
- SOC 2
- CSA STAR
- Cyber Essentials
- NIST CSF
- CIS 18
- COBIT
- PCI DSS
- SWIFT CSP
- GDPR
Awareness
- Phishing-simulation platforms
need something specific?