Ryan Basden

I am many things: a hacker, a photographer, a writer, and a chronic thinker.

Most of what I care about comes back to agency: paying attention, making deliberate choices, and taking responsibility for their consequences. I value the patient work of understanding things well enough to make them meaningfully better, and being honest even when the answers are inconvenient.

It shapes how I spend my time. The subjects and focuses can shift, but the obligation to see clearly and leave things better than I found them does not.

I’m the Head of Offensive Security at Xora building autonomous source code security testing engines and doing vulnerability research. I’ve spent the last decade testing systems, leading teams, and figuring out how organizations fail at security.

Before that, I worked red team operations at Bishop Fox and spent five years at risk3sixty, where I led the penetration testing practice. I publish security writing here and through Empiric Security, my independent consulting outfit.

Recent Writing

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Photos

Seabirds circling a steep, stratified sea cliff rising out of choppy grey water. Low sun raking across a mountain valley, catching the ridge line and a band of trees below. A still mountain lake ringed by peaks, with a rocky foreground shoreline under an overcast sky.

Outside of work, I shoot film and ride motorcycles. More frames are over here.