Pete Renals is a principal researcher on Palo Alto Networks’ Unit 42 threat intelligence team. He recently retired as an United States Army cyber warfare officer, where he spent over eight years working to advance national cyber capabilities in support of US Cyber Command. Culminating his military career as the Director of Special Projects within the Cyber National Mission Force (CNMF), he routinely championed technical capabilities with strategic impacts that significantly shaped domestic cybersecurity policy. His area of expertise is on leveraging large datasets to detect attacks, identify attribution, and ultimately develop countermeasures, in order to prevent future attacks.

Pete holds a Bachelor’s degree in computer science from the United States Military Academy, a Master’s degree in information security from Carnegie Mellon University, and is currently a Technology Fellow with the Tech, Law, & Security Program at American University, Washington College of Law.