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Jacob Santos

Jacob Santos

Threat Hunter, Researcher and Builder

Sr. Threat Researcher | Trend AI
17
Articles
14
Threads
10+
Tools
10+
Talks
About Jacob Santos

About Me

Threat researcher. Tool builder. Instructor.

I work at the intersection of threat research, security automation, and intelligence dissemination.

I hunt for emerging threats, analyze malware, track campaigns, and build tools that make the team faster. I also deliver advanced threat defense workshops internationally for government agencies, law enforcement, and enterprises. What drives me is the investigation -- solving puzzles, connecting dots, and finding things that haven't been reported yet.

10+
Tools Built
17
Published Research
5
Countries
1
Innovation Award

What I Bring

Proactive Hunter

Proactive threat hunting through YARA rules, infrastructure fingerprinting, and telemetry analysis -- from OSINT to APT attribution.

Builder Mentality

Every tool solves a real workflow problem -- from threat intelligence gathering to inquiry triage to automated detection. Built and shipped production tools adopted by the team.

Threat Defense Instructor

Delivered hands-on workshops for multinational groups, government agencies, and enterprises across multiple countries. Created conference lab content for 2 consecutive years.

Research Focus

Ransomware Families Primary
BYOVD & Defense Evasion Active
Cross-Platform Threats Active
APT Campaigns & Espionage Active
Infrastructure Hunting & C2 Mapping Active

Experience

Jan 2025 · Trend AI Trend AI

Senior Threat Researcher

  • Published 17+ research articles and 14 threat intelligence threads on ransomware operations, APT campaigns, and defense evasion techniques
  • Designed and shipped 10+ production security tools, cutting threat response time from 2+ hours to under 15 minutes
  • Recognized with a company innovation award for threat intelligence automation adopted into an enterprise product
  • Delivered advanced threat defense workshops across 5 countries for law enforcement, government agencies, and enterprise teams
Jun 2023 · Trend AI Trend AI

Threat Hunter / Threat Researcher

  • Proactively hunted emerging threats via OSINT and internal telemetry, writing YARA rules and performing malware analysis to identify undetected ransomware families
  • Built automated hunting dashboards and contributed threat intelligence to multiple ransomware spotlight publications
Oct 2022 · Trend AI Trend AI

Cybersecurity Threat Engineer

  • Intensive 6-month malware analysis program: assembly, reverse engineering, analysis across all platforms with elimination-based exams — zero failures

Note on Published Work

The research showcased here represents my publicly available work. The rest is TLP:RED.