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Alex Chiu

Threat Researcher

Talos Security Intelligence and Research Group

For Alex, nothing is more rewarding than dissecting security challenges and architecting solutions for them. He’s always enjoyed puzzles, and taking things apart to figure out what makes them tick.

As a Threat Researcher for the Cisco Talos Intelligence and Research Group, Alex is still working through puzzles, but ones that are incredibly complex and ever-changing, and that move at a rapid pace. He applies his problem-solving abilities to helping to improve the efficacy of the Cisco security product portfolio. He studies Cisco’s vast product telemetry, analyzes it, and identifies security trends affecting Cisco customers.

Alex says never knowing what the next cybersecurity challenge will be is what keeps him on his toes, and is why he is passionate about security. But he did not initially envision a career in security when he entered the University of Texas at Austin to earn a B.S. in Computer Science—until he worked for Cisco. Alex joined the Outreach team as part of Cisco Talos Security Intelligence and Research Group (Talos) in February 2014.

Articles

August 20, 2014

THREAT RESEARCH

Snowshoe Spam Attack Comes and Goes in a Flurry

4 min read

This post is co-authored by Jaeson Schultz and Craig Williams. Every so often, we observe certain spam campaigns that catch our interest. On August 15, we observed a particular spam campaign that caught our attention because it was using “snowshoe” spam techniques combined with PDF exploitation. While neither of these techniques are new, we have seen a growing […]