ABOUT
HACKBACK GAMING
HISTORY OF HACKBACK GAMING
Did you know that the first board games were developed in 3500 BC in a game called “Senet”? Historians have had a difficult time figuring out how the game was played! Checkers was developed in 3000 BC. Seems remarkable to me that it was developed so long ago. Just think of a person’s motivation to build Checkers so long ago and achieving such staying power!
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In the 1970’s, “Dungeons and Dragons” was created in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin and had a very colorful history before “Wizards of the Coast” purchased the game from a company that was facing bankruptcy. The premise was simple: players would portray only a single character and would explore underground dungeons where they would face perils and puzzles. Both the characters and the story would persist from session to session, with characters working cooperatively and improving over time.
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As the cybersecurity profession has grown and evolved, a number of card, board and role playing games have been developed to help individuals “play” in this field. We’ve played/tested a range of games… from the technically complicated that have participants throwing viruses and malware at specific devices in a network to games that highlight risk (with no need to understand cybersecurity). HackBack is inspired by Dungeons and Dragons, Expel’s Oh Noes!, Munchkins and others!
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Our games are great for gathering people for industry marketing events, team building, training AND incident response training.
Glen Sorensen is a Virtual Chief Information Security Officer (vCISO) with Cyber Risk Opportunities. He has worn numerous hats in his career, in areas such as security engineering and architecture, security operations, GRC, and leadership. He has held a variety of roles as an analyst, engineer, consultant, auditor, regulator, and information security officer for a financial institution.
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Glen approaches problems with practical solutions that bring good business value and has worked across many sectors, including financial services, healthcare, manufacturing, and others. He has served as a consulting expert in a large legal case involving healthcare and cyber attack detection technology. He has been in IT and security for 15+ years, longer if you count years of misspent youth bending technology and countless hours of roleplaying games. He is a co-host of the Bytewise Podcast, which is about unraveling the relationships between IT, cybersecurity, and risk management. He is also a sucker for a good tabletop exercise and serves as an Incident Master for HackBack Gaming, the fun kind of TTX.
Glen Sorensen, Incident Master
Klaus Agnoletti, Incident Master
With 20 years of experience in all things cyber security and a mind that overflows with ideas on how to use various forms of game-based learning to educate in cyber security, Klaus primarily works as an infosec freelancer with his own company Relations Security operating out of the basic philosophy that everything in security is about human relations. Similarly, effective learning is about doing so with other people while having fun.
Klaus operates out of Copenhagen, Denmark where he lives with his wife and two black shelter cars. Klaus primarily focuses on European HackBack customers.
With an extensive entrepreneurial and technical background, Andy has a successful history of building high tech businesses. He has over a decade of experience in information security enterprise software and services. He has developed a specialty in building novel, meaningful and collaborative events with technical customers and partners.
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Andy has held director-level roles leading sales, consulting, and client management in companies ranging from cybersecurity startups to mature corporations, including Optiv Security and Symantec Corporation. HackBack Gaming began as a monthly local event for Portland's cybersecurity community and has grown to become a full-time services company assisted by a number of talented partners.
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His hobbies include home remodeling, windsurfing and exploring the great outdoors in the Northwest from his home in Portland, Oregon.
Andy Kaplan, Founder
