Who is Winn?

Winn looks at the cyber, physical, and cognitive security worlds through the prisms of time and feedback loops.

Sometimes his ideas are controversial.

Winn has lived cybersecurity since 1983 and his predictions about the Internet and security have been scarily spot on. He coined “Electronic Pearl Harbor” before Congress in 1991, showing the world how and why massive identify theft, cyber-espionage, nation state hacking, and cyber terrorism would be an integral part of our future. In 1996 he was dubbed the “The Civilian Architect of Information Warfare,” by Commodore Pat Tyrrell OBE Royal Navy, UK.

Winn is one of the country’s most sought after experts on information security, infrastructure protection, and electronic privacy, and is gifted at making highly technical security subjects understandable and entertaining. He has written a number of books and published articles. He is the founder of InfoWarCon, the founder of The Security Awareness Company, and executive producer of Hackers Are People Too.

Winn has been the recipient of a host of industry recognitions including SC Magazine’s Top 20 Industry Pioneers, Security Magazine’s 25 Most Influential, and Network World’s Power Thinker. He is a Fellow at the Royal Society of the Arts, a Distinguished Fellow at the Ponemon Institute, as well as an inductee at the ISSA International Security Hall of Fame.


Winn currently lives in Nashville, Tennessee with his wife and three cats. Even though he technically “retired,” Winn is always busy writing, researching, consulting, presenting at and attending conferences. He can often be found jetting around the world, spending much of his time in Paris, London, and the Netherlands. In his down time, he reads too many books to keep track of, finishes crossword puzzles, listens to old rock n’ roll, and spends hours building legos with his grandson.

Let’s work together!

Want to see Winn live? Hire him for keynotes, workshops, tutorials, webinars, podcasts, interviews, and more.

For speaking & interview opportunities, contact: