Co-Founder, Instructor
Alex Ionescu is a world-class security engineer, operating system architect, and consultant expert in low-level system software, kernel development, security training, and reverse engineering. He is co-author of the last three editions of the Windows Internals series, along with Andrea Allievi, Mark Russinovich, and David Solomon.
His work has led to the fixing of many critical kernel vulnerabilities in multiple operating systems and UEFI components, as well as dozens of non-security bugs. In 2011, Alex joined CrowdStrike, Inc as its Founding Chief Architect and later served as the Vice President of Endpoint Engineering, where he led a team of 200 engineers and researchers until his retirement in 2021. Prior to that, Alex was the lead kernel developer for ReactOS, an open-source Windows clone written from scratch, for which he wrote most of the Windows NT-based subsystems.
During his studies in Computer Science, Alex worked at Apple on the iOS kernel, boot loader, and drivers on the original core platform team behind the iPhone, iPad, and AppleTV. Alex is also the founder of Winsider Seminars & Solutions Inc., a company that specializes in low-level system software, reverse engineering, and security training for various institutions.
He currently serves as the Technical Director of Platform Operations and Research at the Communications Security Establishment. This establishment is responsible for foreign signals intelligence and communications security, as well as protecting government networks. It also serves as the nation’s technical authority for cybersecurity and information assurance. Alex completed his Master of Information & Cyber Security degree at UC Berkeley, Class of 2024.
