Nicole Becher is currently the Business Information Security Officer for S&P Global Platts, a leading provider of energy and commodities information and benchmark price assessments in the physical commodity markets. In this role, she works with both technology and business leadership to ensure security is built into the strategic plans of the organization, especially as new technology is deployed.
Prior to this role, she has been in the cybersecurity space for over 12 years working mostly as a consultant in technical offensive security capacities leading penetration testers, red teams, forensics, and incident responders.
She also worked on various policy initiatives, including cyber and regulatory policy for New York State Department of Financial Services. At NYSDFS, she helped draft the first-in-nation regulatory framework for assessing the cybersecurity of large and complex financial institutions and draft the first-in-nation regulatory and licensing framework for bitcoin and virtual currency companies. Nicole is currently a member of the Virtual Commodities Association (VCA), where she co-leads the Custody & Cybersecurity Committee. The VCA is working to establish an industry-sponsored, self-regulatory organization for the U.S. virtual currency industry.
Nicole is also an adjunct instructor at New York University, where she teaches courses on offensive and defensive computer security, network security, web application security, and computer forensics. She is a project leader for OWASP DevSlop Project (Open Web Application Security Project).
Nicole has presented both technical talks and training, at various conferences around the world on topics related to her research interests. Since Nicole has held technical, leadership, and policy roles, she has a very unique perspective in the information security space. She was a Cybersecurity fellow of New America, a Washington D.C.-based think tank, and was a fellow of the Madison Policy Forum, a cybersecurity-focused policy group bridging military, government and industry.
She is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP). Nicole is a member of the Conservation Technology SMART Security Council and is very active in wildlife conservation technology and animal rescue.