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Choose your own adventure: Hacker or Executive or Longer And More Personal?

Hacker

Æva Black is a non-binary hacker and veteran of the first dot-com bubble. They founded Null Point Studio in 2025 to continue supporting the sustainability and safety of free and open source software after departing the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

When not playing games or cooking for friends, Æva can often be found adventuring on a motorcycle ...

Executive

Æva Black brings a wealth of knowledge from both the private and public sectors to any policy discussion. They are an international thought leader on open source software security with over 25 years of experience building digital infrastructure, leading open source projects, and advising on cybersecurity policy matters. In 2025, they founded Null Point Studio, a boutique cybersecurity consulting firm, to continue supporting the sustainability and security of free and open source software.

Longer & More Personal

Æva Black is a distinguished technology advisor, open source hacker, and veteran of the first dot-com bubble. They founded Null Point Studio in 2025 to support the sustainability and security of free and open source software after departing from the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

-- "Technical Luminary", - Wired

From 2023 - 2025, Æva led the Open Source Software Security team within CISA's Vulnerability Management division. Prior to that, they held senior technical positions at Microsoft, IBM, and HP Enterprise, served on the boards of a few non-profits, founded a few open source projects, and held advisory roles on a few technical committees.

-- "child prodigy turned creative genius", - CISA

Æva has been speaking at technical conferences around the world since 2005, including at RSAC, DEFCON, BSides, ShmooCon, FOSDEM, RustConf, ASF's Community Over Code, USENIX LISA, LF's OSSummit and KubeCon, SCaLE, and many more.

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