Who We Are
About Us
Terminate the Threat
Adolfo "Val" Vask — Co-Founder & Principal
Val has spent 20 years on the offensive side of security, breaking into the systems organizations thought were locked down, then showing them what actually mattered. What sets him apart is that he's seen it from both chairs: he's the operator running the breach, and he's been the CISO who had to answer for the risk to a board.
He's led red team and penetration testing engagements across government, healthcare, and critical infrastructure, including work that took a major transit system to PCI compliance and kept it there three years running. As CISO of a large enterprise, he built the security program from the ground up, which is where he learned the part most red teamers never do: which findings a leadership team can actually act on, and which ones just make a report longer.
He holds a master's in Cybersecurity, the OSCP, CISSP, CISM, CEH, and a stack of others, and a Team Excellence Award from a federal security agency. But the short version is simpler: he can break in, and he can tell you what to do about it. That's the whole idea behind Null Cipher.
Christopher "Joel" Parsons — Co-Founder & Principal
Joel has spent 15+ years learning how systems break and teaching others to see it too. Colleagues know him for being straight with them: no jargon smoke, no inflated findings, just a clear picture of where the weaknesses are and how to fix them.
The interest started when he was a kid taking things apart. It went professional in the early 2010s as a penetration tester and red team operator at Johns Hopkins APL, then deepened over five years inside the NSA's Tailored Access Operations, the Agency's top cyberwarfare unit as a CNE operator and technical director. That's where the attacker's mindset stopped being a skill and became instinct. He's led red teams ever since and now brings that edge to Null Cipher.
He holds the OSCP, OSCE, and CISSP, and a Master's in Information Systems Engineering from Johns Hopkins — but what he actually brings is rarer than any of them: he's operated at the level real adversaries do, so he knows exactly what they'd do to you. That's the perspective he builds every engagement around.
Empowering Your Cybersecurity Journey
Null Cipher Security enhances security through expert analysis, tailored testing, and strategic advisory services, ensuring organizations are prepared against cyber threats with comprehensive support and remediation.
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