Bret padres

Bret A. Padres directs Stroz Friedberg’s Digital Forensics Lab in Washington, DC, and co-manages the firm’s digital forensics practice. With over 22 years of experience in the fields of information security, digital forensics, law enforcement, electronic discovery, and counterintelligence, Mr. Padres is responsible for developing and implementing policies and procedures to ensure the highest level of service and quality of deliverables for clients. He maintains an active case load and leads investigations for government, corporate, and law firm clients in matters involving all aspects of digital forensics and electronic discovery.

Mr. Padres has led incident response teams to investigate significant hacking incidents occurring in private corporate networks and at government agencies. Additionally, he has designed and implemented digital forensic tools and practices for incident response and computer analysis, for use in both civil and criminal matters. Prior to joining Stroz Friedberg, Mr. Padres held various leadership positions, including Director of Incident Response and Director of Cyber Operations, at other private consulting firms.

Mr. Padres also enjoyed a distinguished career in federal government service that included serving as the Chief of Research and Development, Computer Crimes Unit, for the U.S. Postal Service Office of the Inspector General. In this capacity, he managed the research and development program implementing new technologies to enhance computer investigative capabilities. In addition, he performed digital forensic analysis and provided expert testimony in federal court in connection with the espionage prosecution of Brian Regan, who was subsequently convicted of stealing classified information for sale to foreign countries.

Mr. Padres served as a Special Agent in the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations where he was the lead agent on several national and international computer intrusion investigations. He also provided computer forensic support and expert reports and testimony detailing the results of forensic examinations in significant criminal investigations involving child pornography, homicide, and rape. His responsibility included coordinating investigative issues with other law enforcement authorities. Mr. Padres also directed network surveillance and intrusion detection counterintelligence operations for U.S. government agencies, for which he built a forensic and field monitoring capability in support of cyber-operations.

Mr. Padres received his B.S. degree in Computer Information Systems from Excelsior College and has a certificate in C/C++ programming. He has made helpful contributions to the digital forensic field by developing open source digital forensic tools and co-hosting a weekly Internet radio show, in which he interviews other experts and explores digital forensics, network security, and computer crime topics with an audience that numbers in the thousands.

Mr. Padres has made helpful contributions to the digital forensic field by developing open source digital forensic tools and co-hosting a weekly Internet radio show, CyberSpeak, in which he interviews other experts and explores digital forensics, network security and computer crime topics with thousands of listeners.