Nicole Becher was a fellow in New America's Cybersecurity Initiative. She is the Director of Cyber Operations at Fractal Industries. She specializes in application security, red teaming, penetration testing, malware analysis, and computer forensics. Previously, she worked for a financial regulator, where she developed policies for assessing the cyber-readiness of large and complex financial institutions and drafted the cybersecurity piece of the first regulatory framework for bitcoin and virtual currencies. As an adjunct instructor at New York University, Becher teaches courses on offensive and defensive computer security, network security, web application security, and computer forensics. She is also a chapter leader for OWASP Brooklyn (Open Web Application Security Project). Her research interests include web application security, malware analysis, cryptography, malware economies, cybercrime, and international cyberlaws and regulation. Becher is also a fellow of the Madison Policy Forum, a cybersecurity-focused policy group bridging military, government and industry.
