Peiter Zatko, better known as Mudge, is a computer and network security expert, open source programmer, writer, and a hacker. He ran one of the most famous hacker think tanks, the l0pht, and famously testified to the US Senate about catastrophic vulnerabilities within critical infrastructure in 1998 (and provided less famous testimony other times). Mudge has contributed significantly to disclosure and education on information and security vulnerabilities. In addition to pioneering buffer overflow work, the security work he released contained early examples of flaws in the following areas: code injection, race condition, side-channel attack, exploitation of embedded systems, and cryptanalysis of commercial systems. He was the original author of the password cracking software L0phtCrack.Professionally, in addition to having been the CEO of the L0pht, Mudge was a senior government official at DARPA, Corporate Vice President of Engineering at Motorola, Deputy Director of Google's Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP) division, head of security at Stripe, and Chairman of the Board at the non-profit Cyber-ITL. He was awarded the highest medal able to be bestowed upon a civilian by the Secretary of Defense.
