Bill Swearingen

About Bill Swearingen

I protect organizations when the stakes are highest.For over two decades, I\'ve built and led cybersecurity programs defending critical infrastructure against nation-state actors, ransomware operators, and sophisticated criminal groups — from Fortune 100 enterprises with 200+ person teams to ultra-high-net-worth family offices where a single breach could be catastrophic.As CISO/CSO at CenturyLink (now Lumen), I built the entire cyber defense organization from the ground up: Incident Response, Threat Intelligence, Malware Analysis, Red Team, Forensics, Application Security, and Vulnerability Management. We launched customer-facing security products, drove measurable reductions in Mean Time to Detection, and I presented our security posture to the Board of Directors and insurance underwriters.At IronNet Cybersecurity, I led high-profile incident response engagements and was a primary contributor to a national cybersecurity strategy for a foreign government.Today, as co-founder of TRIFIDENT Advisory Services, I serve as vCISO and strategic advisor to multinational corporations, PE firms, and Family Offices. Recent work includes leading cyber due diligence for a $15B acquisition where I identified critical MSP gaps that safeguarded the deal, and designing tabletop exercises so realistic that one scenario played out three months later, the client\'s CISO said the exercise prepared them perfectly.Beyond my day job, I\'m deeply invested in growing the cybersecurity community:→ Co-founded SecKC (seckc.org) — one of the largest monthly cybersecurity meetups in the world→ Co-founded Cowtown Computer Congress (c3kc.org), a hackerspace in Kansas City→ Authored \"Awesome Incident Response,\" a widely referenced open-source IR guide on GitHub→ Served as President of FBI InfraGard Kansas City→ DEF CON speaker — \"HAKC THE POLICE\"(DEF CON 27) on hardware hacking law enforcement radar/laser systems. Presented at Black Hat, Saintcon, and dozens of industry events.I\'m a hands-on technical leader who still writes Python, builds hardware projects, and develops AI-driven security tools. CISOs who stop touching technology stop being effective.CISSP | CISM | CMMC Registered Practitioner | Former TS/SCI (DoD)Need a security leader who\'s been in the room when it mattered most — board presentations, active incidents, M&A due diligence? Let\'s connect.

Experience

1. Founding Partner

   Trifident

   Jun 2022 — Present

   Co-founded TRIFIDENT to make nation-state-grade cybersecurity expertise accessible to organizations of all sizes. We serve as fractional CISO, strategic advisor, and incident response partner to multinational corporations, private equity firms, ultra-high-net-worth family offices, and healthcare and financial services organizations. Led cyber due diligence for a $15B private equity acquisition, identifying critical managed service provider gaps and delivering the security roadmap that safeguarded the transaction Served as vCISO for a global manufacturing firm, strengthening identity protections and reducing account takeover incidents by 60% in under two quarters Designed and facilitated executive-level tabletop exercises simulating sophisticated supply chain attacks — one scenario played out in reality three months later, with the client\'s CISO confirming the exercise prepared their organization perfectly Led a cybersecurity discovery engagement for a prominent family office, diagnosing that their MSP took 10 days to alert on a increase in brute-force attacks — then architected a new security model with a best-in-class MSSP and modern technology stack Conducted cybersecurity program assessments against NIST CSF, ISO 27001, and CIS frameworks, and served as a lead component in SOC 2 audits for multiple clients Led compliance-based certification programs for CMMC, ISO, NIST, and CIS — Certified CMMC Registered Practitioner (RP-57281) Managed incident response for high-profile engagements across financial services, healthcare, and technology sectors, including development of crisis communication playbooks for executive teams and media engagement

Education

• Kansas State University

  BS, Management of Information Systems

  1996 — 2000

• Kansas State University

  Bachelor of Science (BS), Business Administration and Management, General

  1996 — 2000

Skills

• Incident Investigation
• Information Security
• Technical Direction
• Data Security
• Security Audits
• Ninja Skills
• Servers
• Professional Mentoring
• Data Center
• Executive Reporting
• Management
• Murder
• Decisiveness
• Cyber Defense
• Business Continuity
• Fisma
• Risk Management
• Application Security
• Ethical Hacker
• Troubleshooting
• Computer Forensics
• Information Security Management
• Incident Command
• Security Management
• Major Incident Management
• Security
• Enterprise Software
• Networking
• Security Incident Response
• Information Technology
• Information Management
• Incident Response
• Ids
• Wireless
• Disaster Recovery
• Cissp
• Computer Security
• Incident Management
• Cyber Warfare
• Pci Dss