Richard Cardenas

Richard Cardenas is a Principal Security Engineer at Intel Corporation with over 15 years of experience bridging offensive and defensive cybersecurity disciplines. At Intel, Richard has led transformative security initiatives spanning identity and access management, directory services, privileged access management, and zero trust architecture, enabling critical business objectives including secure digital transformation and enterprise risk reduction.

Richard’s expertise encompasses:

• Advanced Threat Simulation & Red Team Operations – Leading sophisticated adversary emulation engagements that identify systemic vulnerabilities in enterprise environments
• Identity Protection & Zero Trust Architecture – Architecting comprehensive identity security and cloud solutions that reduce organizational risk while enabling secure business operations
• Directory Services & Authentication – Deep expertise in directory services, SSO, and MFA implementations for complex enterprise environments
• Security Leadership & Transformation – Driving cross-organizational security programs that deliver measurable risk reduction

Richard serves as an offensive security subject matter expert, collaborating with industry leaders on advanced threat detection technologies. He has organized and presented at Intel’s internal security conferences for five consecutive years and mentored numerous engineers into technical leadership roles. Richard holds multiple security certifications including CRTO, OSCP, CISSP, and GSEC. He is known for distilling complex technical challenges into actionable insights that resonate with both technical teams and executive leadership.