About me

I am a cybersecurity researcher born in Patagonia, Argentina, with over ten years of experience in the field. My research strongly focuses on helping people; I specialize in threat intelligence, malware traffic analysis, and data analysis. I have developed my career across both industry and academia.

Currently, I work as a senior researcher and project leader at the Stratosphere Research Laboratory at the Czech Technical University in Prague. In this role, I drive research and development projects, improve processes, and enhance community engagement with the groups I collaborate with. As a senior researcher, I oversee research, development, and customer support for the Civilsphere project, which aims to protect civil society organizations and individuals at risk from targeted digital threats.

I am deeply passionate about cybercrime, honeypots, intelligence analysis, and enhancing team efficiency. I have presented my research at international conferences, including Black Hat, EkoParty, Botconf, Virus Bulletin, and Deepsec. I am the co-founder of MatesLab hackerspace in Argentina and the Independent Fund for Women in Tech. Furthermore, I offer specialized, hands-on, intensive training on network traffic analysis at global conferences, leveraging my experience from analyzing over 18,000 hours of network traffic in recent years. In 2022, I began pursuing my second master’s degree in Intelligence and Security Studies at Liverpool John Moores University. I serve as a review board on industry conferences such as BlackHat and Ekoparty and as a program committee of academic events.

Advising

Master Thesis Co-Supervisor, 2023-2024, Seguridad de un satélite en órbita: Detección de compromiso mediante técnicas de integridad. Juan Ignacio Bousquet. UBA, Argentina
Master Thesis Supervisor Specialist, 2022-2023, A Network Dataset of Normal, Malware, Attack and Background Traffic on a Real Network. Štěpán Bendl. FEE, CTU in Prague, Czech Republic
Master Thesis Supervisor Specialist, 2019-2020, The first comprehensive report on the state of the security of mobile phones of civil society. Jakub Čech. FEE, CTU in Prague, Czech Republic

Teaching

Fall 2024, Teaching Assistant, Introduction to Computer Security (in English), Open Informatics Master Program, CTU in Prague
Fall 2023, Teaching Assistant, Introduction to Computer Security (in English), Open Informatics Master Program, CTU in Prague
Fall 2022, Teaching Assistant, Introduction to Computer Security (in English), Open Informatics Master Program, CTU in Prague
Fall 2021, Teaching Assistant, Introduction to Computer Security (in English), Open Informatics Master Program, CTU in Prague
Fall 2020, Teaching Assistant, Introduction to Computer Security (in English), Open Informatics Master Program, CTU in Prague

Trainings

2024 BlackHat USA, trainer, Advanced Malware Traffic Analysis - Adaptive Defence 2024 Edition
2024 BlackHat Asia, trainer, Advanced Malware Traffic Analysis - Adaptive Defence 2024 Edition
2023 BlackHat USA, trainer, Advanced Malware Traffic Analysis - Defence in Depth 2023 Edition
2023 BlackHat Asia, trainer, Advanced Malware Traffic Analysis: Own Your Protection. 2023 Edition
2022 BlackHat Europe, trainer, Advanced Malware Traffic Analysis: Smarter Protection - 2022 Edition
2022 BlackHat USA, trainer, Advanced Malware Traffic Analysis: Smarter Protection - 2022 Edition
2021 BlackHat Europe, trainer, Advanced Malware Traffic Analysis: Smarter Protection - 2021 Edition
2021 BlackHat USA, trainer, Advanced Malware Traffic Analysis: Smarter Protection - 2021 Edition
2021 NorthSec, trainer, Getting Your Hands Dirty: Understanding & Hunting Down Malware Attacks in Your Network
2020 BlackHat Europe, trainer, Advanced Malware Traffic Analysis - Adversarial Thinking - 2020 Edition
2020 BlackHat USA, trainer, Advanced Malware Traffic Analysis - Adversarial Thinking - 2020 Edition
2020 BlackHat Asia, trainer, Advanced Malware Traffic Analysis - Adversarial Thinking - 2020 Edition
2019 Ekoparty, trainer, Getting Your Hands Dirty: Understanding & Hunting Down Malware Attacks in Your Network
2019 BlackHat USA, trainer, Advanced Malware Traffic Analysis - Adversarial Thinking
2019 OWASP Czech Republic, trainer, Getting Your Hands Dirty: IoT Botnet Analysis
2019 Internet Freedom Festival, trainer, Emergency VPN: Analyzing mobile network traffic to detect digital threats
2019 BlackHat Asia, trainer, Advanced Malware Traffic Analysis - Adversarial Thinking
2019 Troopers, trainer, Machine Learning for Network Security and Malware Detection
2018 BlackHat Europe, trainer, Advanced Malware Traffic Analysis - Adversarial Thinking
2018 HackLu, trainer, Getting Your Hands Dirty: How to Analyze the Behavior of Malware Traffic and Web Connections
2018 Ekoparty, trainer, Advanced Malware Attacks In Your Network
2016 Botconf, trainer, Getting your hands dirty: How to Analyze the Behavior of Malware Traffic and Web Connections

Contributions

Civilsphere AI VPN, Core researcher and developer, 2021-2023, AIC, FEL, CTU in Prague, Czech Republic
Slips, supporter, 2018-2024, AIC, FEL, CTU in Prague, Czech Republic

Awards & Scholarships

Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award, Winter Semester 2023/2024, AI Center, FEE, Czech Technical University in Prague, Czech Republic
Career Trajectory Award 2021, Ekoparty Security Conference, Argentina
Information Security Undergraduate Scholarship 2011, (ISC)² Foundation, United States
Full University Scholarship 2010-2013, FASTA University, Argentina
Student scholarship 2010-2011, Chubut Province’s Department of Scholarships and Compensation Policies, Argentina
Partial University Scholarship 2007-2009, FASTA University, Argentina
Special Mention 2002, Instituto Balseiro, Argentina
Best Technological Project Idea 1999, Ministry of Education of Chubut Province, Argentina

Initiatives

Co-founder of the Independent Fund for Women in Tech, a global initiative to foster the participation of women in cybersecurity conferences, in 2018.
Co-founder of the MatesLab hackerspace in Mar del Plata, Argentina, in 2009.

Review Boards

BlackHat Trainings Review Board, 2022-Ongoing
Workshop on Attackers and Cyber-Crime Operations Program Committee, IEEE European Symposium on Security and Privacy, 2021-Ongoing
Ekoparty Security Conference Review Board, 2018-Ongoing
BlackHat Briefings EU Review Board, 2018

Publications

Peer-reviewed Conferences and Journals

Towards Better Understanding of Cybercrime: The Role of Fine-Tuned LLMs in Translation. In 2024 IEEE European Symposium on Security and Privacy Workshops (EuroS&PW). Valeros, V., Širokova, A., Catania, C., & Garcia, S. (2024).
LLM in the Shell: Generative Honeypots. In 2024 IEEE European Symposium on Security and Privacy Workshops (EuroS&PW). Sladić, M., Valeros, V., Catania, C., & Garcia, S. (2024).
Hornet 40: network dataset of geographically placed honeypots. Data in Brief, 107795. Valeros, V., & Garcia, S. (2022).
Growth and commoditization of remote access trojans. In 2020 IEEE European Symposium on Security and Privacy Workshops (EuroS&PW) (pp. 454-462). IEEE. Valeros, V., & Garcia, S. (2020, September).
Machete: Dissecting the Operations of a Cyber Espionage Group in Latin America. In 2019 IEEE European Symposium on Security and Privacy Workshops (EuroS&PW) (pp. 464-473). IEEE. Valeros, V., Rigaki, M., & Garcia, S. (2019, June).
An overview of the WCMS brute-forcing malware landscape. The Journal on Cybercrime & Digital Investigations, 3(1), 20-29. Shirokova, A., & Valeros, V. (2017).
Make it count: an analysis of a brute-forcing botnet. The Journal on Cybercrime & Digital Investigations, 1(1). Valeros, V. (2016).
Exploit kit website detection using http proxy logs. In Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Network, Communication and Computing (pp. 120-125). Nikolaev, I., Grill, M., & Valeros, V. (2016).
Detecting DGA malware using NetFlow. In 2015 IFIP/IEEE International Symposium on Integrated Network Management (IM) (pp. 1304-1309). IEEE. Grill, M., Nikolaev, I., Valeros, V., & Rehak, M. (2015).
Educarse y divertirse, la Universidad y el Hackspace. V Congreso de Tecnología en Educación y Educación en Tecnología. V. Valeros, S. Garcia (2010).
De la universidad al hacklab, respetar y divertirse en la educación. World Engineering Congress. V. Valeros, S. Garcia (2010).

Reports

ENISA Threat Landscape for DoS Attacks, ENISA, 2023
ENISA Threat Landscape for Ransomware Attacks, ENISA, 2022
ENISA Threat Landscape for Supply Chain Attacks, ENISA, 2021
ENISA Report - Encrypted Traffic Analysis, ENISA, 2019

Conferences

AI VPN: A Free-Software AI-Powered Network Forensics Tool, BlackHat Asia Arsenal (Virtual), 2024
AI VPN: A Free-Software AI-Powered Network Forensics Tool, BlackHat Europe Arsenal (UK), 2023
Four Key Problems in OSINT for Cyber Threat Intelligence, ENISA CTI (Greece), 2023
AI VPN: A Free-Software AI-Powered Network Forensics Tool, DIMVA Arsenal (Germany), 2023
Un análisis global de la privacidad en tráfico celular y cómo estás en riesgo de vigilancia, Ekoparty (Argentina), 2022
Spy vs. Spy: A Modern Study Of Microphone Bugs Operation And Detection, BSides BUD (Hungary), 2018
Spy vs. Spy: A Modern Study Of Microphone Bugs Operation And Detection, 34C3 (Germany), 2017
Knock Knock… Who’s there? admin admin, Get In! An Overview of the CMS Brute-Forcing Malware Landscape, Botconf (France), 2017
América Latina, blanco de un grupo avanzado de cyber espionaje, TandilSec (Argentina), 2017
Panel: Mujeres en Tecnología y Ciencia, UNICEN (Argentina), 2017
Five days in the life of a CMS brute forcing malware, BSides Vienna (Austria), 2017
An overview of the CMS brute-forcing malware landscape, BruCON (Belgium), 2017
A new twist on the APT targeting Latin America, GoSec (Canada), 2017
Spy vs. Spy: A modern study of microphone bugs operation and detection, Hack in the Box (Singapore), 2017
Are You The Lucky One? Sometimes Luck Can Bring You Malware, Cisco Blogs, 2017
The Future of Cybersecurity Needs You: Here is Why, PyData Berlin (Germany), 2017
Threat Hunting En Masse: The 9 Circles of Evil, Copenhagen CyberCrime Conference (Denmark), 2017
Hunting Them All, Troopers (Germany), 2017
Closing One Learning Loop: Using Decision Forests to Detect Advanced Threats, Cisco Blogs, 2017
In plain sight: Credential and data stealing adware, Cisco Blogs, 2016
Getting your hands dirty: How to Analyze the Behavior of Malware Traffic and Web Connections, Botconf (France), 2016
50 Thousand Needles in 5 Million Haystacks: Understanding Old Malware Tricks to Find New Malware Families, BlackHat EU (UK), 2016
DNS Changer Lighting-talk, Secure PL (Poland), 2016
Trickeries of a giant: a long term study on malicious adware networks, Secure PL (Poland), 2016
Network Analysis for Threat Intelligence Workshop, Czech Technical University (Czech Republic), 2016
Piecing Together Malicious Behavior in Encrypted Traffic, Cisco Blogs, 2016
Cognitive Threat Analytics: Turn Your Proxy Into Security Device, Cisco Blogs, 2016
Threat Hunting En Masse: Challenges And Discoveries, Security Automation World (France), 2016
Adware landscape: what you didn’t want to hear, University of Luxembourg (Luxembourg), 2016
The Dark Side of Adware: Malware and Data Exfiltration, BSides Tel Aviv (Israel), 2016
Adware’s new upsell: malware, BSides Calgary (Canada), 2016
DNSChanger Outbreak Linked to Adware Install Base, Cisco Blogs, 2016
Insights of a brute-forcing botnet, Security Session (Czech Republic) , 2015
Make It Count: an Analysis of a Brute-forcing Botnet, Botconf (France), 2015
Angler for Beginners in 34 Seconds, Cisco Blogs, 2015
Bad Browser Plug-ins Gone Wild: Malvertising, Data Exfiltration, and Malware, Oh my!, Cisco Blogs, 2015
How bluetooth may jeopardize your privacy. An analysis of people behavioral patterns in the street, DeepSec (Austria), 2014
Uncovering your trails Privacy issues of bluetooth devices, Ekoparty (Argentina), 2013
Análisis de anomalías en protocolos web para la detección de ataques, FASTA University, 2012

Datasets

Valeros, V., & Shirokova, A. (2024). CTU-Hacktivist-RU_EN-1: A Dataset with Russian English Translation, Zenodo, doi: 10.5281/zenodo.10782757
Bendl, Š., Valeros, V., & Garcia, S. (2023). CTU-SME-11: a labeled dataset with real benign and malicious network traffic mimicking a small medium-size enterprise environment, Zenodo, doi: 10.5281/zenodo.7958259
García, Sebastián; Čejka, Tomáš; Valeros, Veronica (2021), “Dataset of DNS over HTTPS (DoH) Internet Servers”, Mendeley Data, V2, doi: 10.17632/ny4m53g6bw.2
Valeros, Veronica; Garcia, Sebastian (2021), “Dataset of 50 Online Services Advertised in the Internet Marketing Forum searchengines.guru”, Mendeley Data, V2, doi: 10.17632/48gyrs6y37.2
Valeros, Veronica (2021), “Hornet 40: Network Dataset of Geographically Placed Honeypots”, Mendeley Data, V3, doi: 10.17632/tcfzkbpw46.3
Valeros, Veronica (2021), “Hornet 15: Network Dataset of Geographically Placed Honeypots”, Mendeley Data, V2, doi: 10.17632/rry7bhc2f2.2
Valeros, Veronica (2021), “Hornet 7: Network Dataset of Geographically Placed Honeypots”, Mendeley Data, V3, doi: 10.17632/w6yskg3ffy.3

Veronica Valeros