Chris Valasek

Chris Valasek was a Senior Director with General Motors, and was formerly a computer security researcher with Cruise Automation, a self-driving car startup previously owned by GM.

Career

Chris Valasek has built a career spanning both offensive security research and industry leadership roles. He has worked for a range of organizations including IBM, Coverity, Accuvant, and IOActive, before moving into the automotive technology sector. He joined Cruise Automation, a self-driving car startup previously owned by General Motors, as a security researcher, and subsequently became a Senior Director at General Motors itself.

Security Research

Windows Heap Exploitation

Valasek established an early reputation in the security research community through his work on Microsoft Windows heap exploitation. His 2009 presentation, "Practical Windows XP/2003 Heap Exploitation," delivered at the Black Hat conference, outlined a novel approach to gaining elevated access within Windows environments. He followed this with a 2010 paper titled "Understanding the Low Fragmentation Heap: From Allocation to Exploitation," which examined methods for circumventing vendor mitigations that had been introduced in response to techniques described in his earlier work. Together, these contributions helped advance the public understanding of low-level memory exploitation on Windows platforms.

Automotive Security

Valasek is perhaps most widely recognized for his collaborative research with Charlie Miller on the security of automotive systems. In 2013, the two researchers publicly demonstrated a number of attack vectors targeting electronic control units (ECUs) within automotive control networks. They also produced a survey of remote attack surfaces present in automobiles of that model year, work that helped establish a foundational baseline for the state of automotive security and safety research. Their findings drew significant public and industry attention to the potential risks of networked vehicle systems. Wired journalist Andy Greenberg documented their research in notable articles published in 2015 and 2016, including a widely read account of a remote demonstration conducted on a Jeep while Greenberg was driving it on a highway. Valasek and Miller also maintained a dedicated website, "Car Hacking: The Definitive Source," to publish their ongoing automotive security research.

Community Involvement

Valasek has been involved with Summercon, one of the longest-running hacker conferences in the United States, since 2003, serving as part of its planning committee. He is recognized on the Summercon organizer page with the title of Chairman Emeritus.