Government cyber
Former NSA Technical Director
Served in technical leadership roles supporting computer network operations and defensive security work.
KevinBytes
Cybersecurity research and writing
Kevin O'Connor
KevinBytes publishes Kevin O'Connor's cybersecurity research, tools, experiments, media references, and technical notes.
Kevin O'Connor is a former NSA Technical Director who worked on CrowdStrike's Advanced Research team and led threat research at Adlumin, now part of N-able. Current work centers on adversarial AI systems, detection engineering, and practical security tooling.
Advisory, expert review, and AI security work are available through TKOResearch.
Writing
Latest research and field notes.
July 2, 202110 min read
TOGAF And Zachman For Security Architecture
A practical comparison of TOGAF and Zachman for security teams that need structure without drowning in framework ceremony.
Read note
June 15, 20218 min read
Using C4 Diagrams In Security Work
A practical way to use C4 diagrams for trust boundaries, data flows, and incident response.
Read note
May 20, 20219 min read
4+1 Architecture Views For Security Reviews
How the 4+1 view model can keep security architecture from collapsing into one overloaded diagram.
Read note
Publicly verifiable references
Verified references
SecurityWeek/Media profile
Hacker Conversations: Kevin O'Connor
A third-party profile covering Kevin O'Connor's path through offensive and defensive cybersecurity work.
View reference
Security Magazine/Authored analysis
Holiday weekend cyber threat preparation
An authored article on holiday-weekend cyber threat preparation for security teams.
View reference
CISO Tradecraft/Podcast recap
SMB CISO challenges
Episode recap featuring Kevin O'Connor, then Director of Threat Research at Adlumin, on SMB security leadership and MDR constraints.
View reference
Cybersecurity Summit/Speaking reference
Public security summit listing
A public event listing connecting Kevin O'Connor to security-industry speaking work.
View reference
Background
Technical security work across government, research, and operations
Threat intelligence
CrowdStrike Advanced Research
Worked on advanced research and threat-intelligence problems at commercial scale.
Detection engineering
Adlumin / N-able threat research leadership
Led threat research focused on ransomware, intrusion activity, and practical detection outcomes.
Current work
Founder of TKOResearch
Builds and publishes security research, practical tools, and advisory work through TKOResearch and KevinBytes.
AI security work
Agentic systems, adversarial testing, and security boundaries
AgentBoundary
Public work on evaluating autonomous AI agents against adversarial patterns such as prompt injection, memory poisoning, tool misuse, and context drift.
High-assurance security engineering
Commercial advisory work for systems where AI behavior, tooling, and security boundaries need to be examined before deployment.
Writing and tools
Writing and practical tools
Subscribe
Get new research in your inbox.
Occasional, in-depth notes on AI security and threat research. No noise, no spam - just the work.
Unsubscribe anytime.
Work with Kevin
Need this done, not just read about?
Advisory, expert review, and AI security work are available through TKOResearch. Start there for board briefings, AI security assessments, expert review, or retained advisory work.