Runa Sandvik

Early Life

Runa Sandvik acquired her first computer at the age of fifteen, an experience that set the course for her career in technology and security. She went on to study computer science at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Norway before eventually relocating to the United States.

Career

Sandvik established herself early in the security community as a developer of the Tor anonymity network, a cooperative system that helps individuals obscure their Internet Protocol information when accessing the internet. This foundational work shaped her long-term focus on privacy and digital safety for vulnerable populations.

She serves as a technical advisor to the Freedom of the Press Foundation and holds a position on the review board of Black Hat Europe, two roles that reflect her standing within both the press freedom and professional security research communities. In May 2014, she conducted an interview with whistleblower Edward Snowden.

In February 2015, Sandvik publicly documented her own efforts to retrieve personal information about herself through Freedom of Information Act requests, drawing attention to government data collection practices and the accessibility of such legal tools.

Work at The New York Times

Sandvik joined The New York Times as Senior Director of Information Security, where she contributed to several significant initiatives. She helped launch the newspaper's confidential tips page in December 2016, providing a secure channel for sources to communicate with journalists. She also led efforts to make The New York Times accessible as a Tor Onion service, enabling both employees and readers to access the site in ways that limit exposure to government surveillance and monitoring.

Granitt

Sandvik is the founder of Granitt, an organization focused on security assistance for at-risk civil society groups. Her work through Granitt continues her broader mission of providing practical digital protection to human rights defenders, lawyers, journalists, and others who face elevated risks due to their work.

Notable Research: Hacking of Smart Rifles

One of Sandvik's most widely covered research projects involved the security vulnerabilities of internet-connected firearms. Working alongside her husband, Michael Auger, she demonstrated that the TrackingPoint sniper rifle — a $13,000 weapon equipped with an embedded Linux computer and WiFi capabilities — could be remotely compromised. The rifle's WiFi feature, intended to allow shooters to upload video footage of their shots, introduced a significant attack surface.

Sandvik and Auger discovered they could initiate a Unix shell command-line interpreter through the rifle's network connection and use it to alter the parameters the aiming computer relied upon, causing the weapon to consistently miss its targets. They further found that a knowledgeable attacker could escalate privileges to gain root access, which would allow them to erase all software on the aiming computer entirely — effectively "bricking" the device. The research was reported by Wired magazine and brought significant attention to the security implications of connected devices in high-stakes physical contexts.

Personal Life

Sandvik married Michael Auger in 2014, and the couple made their home in Washington, D.C.