Valerie Thomas is an Executive Consultant and Security Ninja with Securicon, LLC. Ms. Thomas is a passionate security professional with a diverse technical and management background in vulnerability assessment, penetration testing, social engineering, and security compliance. Her strong educational and leadership background enables her to quickly employ new information and concepts in an operational environment. She has not only worked extensively in vulnerability and penetration assessment roles, she has also worked extensively in social engineering, data loss prevention and intrusion monitoring and prevention. Ms. Thomas is a recognized information security authority. Her recent speaking engagements have included conferences around the United States, as well as conferences in Europe and Asia. Valerie has spoken at DerbyCon, DefCon Shmoocon, Nordic Security Conference, BSides, and many others. In addition to many whitepapers and articles, Valerie recently co-authored the book from Syngress Publishing, titled Building an Information Security Awareness Program: Defending Against Social Engineering and Technical Threats, currently available through Amazon and other sources.