Once arrested for a crime of curiosity (computer hacking) in his teens, Manny Mand completely transformed his life to become a highly trusted cybersecurity consultant and a true change maker. From standing handcuffed in a courtroom to becoming a hustling mission-driven entrepreneur, Manny turned his life around. After experiencing the struggle of getting started and finding a job in the infosec industry, up close, he decided to pave the path for others in the same boat. Manny used his forward-thinking to create a two-fold solution. As the Founder and now Chairman of ‘Hackers For Change’ (2021), he not only bridged the gap in employment by providing tailored industry experience and empowering hundreds of individuals seeking a career in cyber security, but also provided a means to secure Canada’s non-profits and charities for free. While his unexpected, short-term arrest was one the biggest challenges Manny had to overcome in his life, he did not let that disappointment slow him down. Instead, he used the agony to construct a better world for himself and many others like him- who are curious to launch into the world of ethical hacking.
Apart from HFC, at present Manny spearheads Mand Consulting Group, where he offers a range of services across Canada and the US, including advisory services (application penetration testing, red teaming, etc.), managed security services, white label security program and technical training. Previously in his career, Manny enabled and supported many Fortune 500 companies and major financial institutions by performing enterprise penetration testing assessments. Despite an unconventional educational background, Manny’s passion for this field landed him a job as an assistant instructor at the University of Toronto, School of Continuing Studies (2019) where he realigned the curriculum to modern day topics and guided students on Cryptography, Linux, Network design, scripting, incident response/forensics etc. Further, in 2018, his collaborative research on OpenEMR allowed him to ethically disclose critical vulnerabilities which kept the medical records of over 100 million patients secure. On top of it, through a separate research, he was able to flag another critical flaw consistent across all of Canada’s ISPs, affecting nearly 30 million Canadians. His work was well received, and these reports were published on multiple platforms such as BBC, ThreatPost, Gizmodo, etc.