Binary Defense Founder Dave Kennedy Takes the Helm as CEO to Lead Agentic AI Security Operations Era

Kennedy assumes CEO role to accelerate NightBeacon platform and drive the next generation of AI-powered threat detection, investigation, and response

CLEVELAND--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Binary Defense, the trusted Managed Detection and Response (MDR) and enterprise defense provider, today announced that founder Dave Kennedy has assumed the role of Chief Executive Officer. Kennedy, who founded Binary Defense in 2014 and has served on its board and as Chief Hacking Officer, is taking the helm to personally lead the company through its most significant technology transformation: the development and rapid deployment of NightBeacon, Binary Defense's agentic AI platform for security operations.

“This is a defining moment for Binary Defense - we are building the next phase of cyber defense, one that won’t just match rapidly advancing threats, but fundamentally change the dynamic between defenders and attackers,” said Dave Kennedy, Founder and CEO of Binary Defense. “The threat landscape is evolving faster than at any point in my career, and companies cannot afford to operate at anything less than machine speed. We built NightBeacon because defenders deserve a SOC solution that outpaces threats, not just reacts to them. This is how we ensure defenders always have the edge."

NightBeacon and the Agentic SOC

NightBeacon is Binary Defense's agentic AI platform designed to fundamentally enhance how security analysts and engineers operate. Unlike approaches that seek to replace human defenders, NightBeacon is built on the principle that the best security operations will always require human judgment at the center, augmented by AI that handles the speed and scale humans alone cannot match.

The platform delivers agentic capabilities across threat detection, investigation, and response workflows, enabling security teams to operate with dramatically greater speed and accuracy while keeping experienced practitioners in command of critical decisions.

"We are not building AI that replaces defenders. We are building AI that makes every defender on our platform superhuman," said Kennedy. "That distinction matters. It is the difference between security operations that actually work in production and a science experiment. NightBeacon is built by practitioners, for practitioners."

Founder-Led Innovation at the Pace the Market Demands

Under Kennedy's leadership, Binary Defense will accelerate its product development cadence with a commitment to rapid prototyping, customer-driven iteration, and publicly committed delivery timelines for new NightBeacon capabilities.

"The threats our customers face are not waiting, and neither are we," said Kennedy. "We have evolved our operations to prototype fast, ship fast, and iterate in the open with the defenders who use our platform every day."

Investor Support

Binary Defense's growth and transformation have been supported by Invictus Growth Partners, which remains the company’s sole institutional investor following a $36 million growth equity investment in 2022.

“This is a defining inflection point for both Binary Defense and the broader cybersecurity industry,” said Jeremy Lai, Partner at Invictus Growth Partners. “It is increasingly clear that AI alone is not a set-and-forget solution for the enterprise SOC. NightBeacon is a category-defining platform that combines the power of agentic AI with elite practitioner expertise to help organizations operate at machine speed without sacrificing human judgment.”

“There is no one better suited than Dave Kennedy to lead Binary Defense into this next chapter, and we are incredibly excited about the company’s future,” Lai said.

About Dave Kennedy

Dave Kennedy is a founder of Binary Defense and TrustedSec, and one of the most recognized practitioners in the cybersecurity industry. Kennedy founded TrustedSec in 2012 as an information security consulting firm built on the belief that security advice should come from people who have done the work, and followed it with Binary Defense in 2014 to bring that same practitioner-first philosophy to managed security operations. A former NSA and U.S. Marine Corps security operator, Kennedy is the creator of several widely adopted open-source security tools and a trusted advisor to organizations worldwide on security operations and threat intelligence. He is the author of Metasploit: The Penetration Tester's Guide and a frequent speaker at leading industry conferences including DEF CON, Black Hat, and RSA.

About Binary Defense

Binary Defense is a leading Managed Detection and Response (MDR) provider, trusted by hundreds of organizations to protect what matters most. Our team of SOC analysts, threat hunters, detection engineers, and threat researchers work around the clock to deliver proactive, risk-focused security outcomes. We bring the attacker's mindset to defense, helping clients detect threats earlier, respond faster, and continuously improve their security posture.

For more information, visit our website, check out our blog, or follow us on LinkedIn.