Profile
Maril Vernon (@SheWhoHacks) known as the “One Woman Purple Team” is an ethical hacker, senior offensive security engineer and proven program manager and pioneer in the Purple Teaming space — a niche in offensive security testing that has recently gained popularity demonstrating cyber resilience in the cyber threat landscape. Maril has built and tested purple teaming operations methodology across multiple industries, from start-ups to enterprise-level organizations (most recently for Zoom Video Communications as a member of the dedicated Red Team). Maril’s expertise on Red and Purple Team Operations was recently featured on the Red Team Roundup and Purple Team Roundup for Wild West Hackin’ Fest, and she is a contributing editor of the latest MITRE ATT&CKv10 Enterprise Matrix. Prior to Purple Team, Maril specialized in red teaming as a social engineer and client-side attack specialist with an emphasis on initial access and cloud pivot and escalation vectors; and has served as a cyber threat hunter and cyber threat intelligence researcher: making her the “One Woman Purple Team.” Maril was also published in the NIST NICE Framework in Focus, is one of the 2020 "Epic Women in Cybersecurity," and was a keynote speaker at the UNLOCKED 2021 Security Conference hosted by Security Weekly. She broke into offensive security three years ago from social media marketing and is a shining example of the success that can be achieved without certifications or a technical background.