Lora Vaughn, CISSP, is a cybersecurity leader, keynote speaker, and LinkedIn Learning instructor who has spent 20+ years protecting organizations from nation-state adversaries, digital payment fraud, and their own bad security habits. She's allergic to security theater and corporate buzzwords. Audiences get real talk and actionable insights, not compliance checkbox theater.
Lora began her career hunting sophisticated threats as a Global Network Exploitation & Vulnerability Analyst at the National Security Agency. She brought that expertise to the private sector as CISO at MoneyGram International, where she secured digital payments for 150 million+ customers across 200+ global markets, and as CISO at Simmons Bank during its growth from $10B to $20B+ in assets. At Fastly, she led security for edge cloud infrastructure handling 10% of global internet traffic (because apparently she likes pressure).
Today, Lora is a LinkedIn Learning instructor with courses on vulnerability management viewed by thousands of cybersecurity professionals. She is a two-time CISOs Connect A100 honoree (2024, 2025) and founder of Vaughn Cyber Group, providing fractional CISO services nationwide.
Known for making security concepts accessible without dumbing them down, Lora speaks at major conferences including ISC2 Security Congress (4.7/5.0 rating), WiCyS, and the Southeast Cybersecurity Summit. Whether addressing a room of CISOs or helping small businesses stay secure without going broke, she brings the same energy: honest, practical, and occasionally funny.
Lora Vaughn, CISSP, is a cybersecurity speaker who's allergic to security theater and corporate buzzwords. A former NSA analyst turned two-time CISO, she protected billions in assets at MoneyGram International (150M+ customers) and Simmons Bank ($20B+ assets), and led security at Fastly for infrastructure handling 10% of global internet traffic.
Today, Lora is a LinkedIn Learning instructor and two-time CISOs Connect A100 honoree. She speaks at major conferences including ISC2 Security Congress (4.7/5.0 rating) and WiCyS, delivering real talk and actionable insights. Whether telling CISOs why their incident response plans will fail or helping small businesses stay secure without going broke, she brings honest, practical advice. Based in Birmingham, Alabama, and available nationwide.
Lora Vaughn, CISSP, is a former NSA analyst and two-time CISO who protected billions in assets at MoneyGram and Simmons Bank. Allergic to security theater and corporate buzzwords, she delivers engaging keynotes with real talk and actionable insights for technical and general audiences nationwide.
