Team
We develop our own technologies and methodologies to ensure the highest level of service for the most ambitious security needs
Iceland Office
Management
Globetrotting CEO
Valdimar Óskarsson is the CEO of Syndis. He holds an M.Sc. in Information Technology/Security and has extensive experience in the field of security and information security management. A native Icelander, Valdimar lived abroad from 2002 - 2017, spending a decade in Denmark where he worked for Betware (now Novomatic) as an operational manager, Sensa as a consultant, and nSense as a PCI Qualified Security Assessor (QSA). Valdimar was appointed as CSO of the Betsson Group in Malta in 2012. In 2015, he became CISO at Transfast, which is a US based money transfer company with offices across the globe.
The Innovator
Anton has over 20 years of experience in technology as a leader, solution architect, consultant, innovator and director. He has spent the last decade leading and building teams around software development and new service offerings. Highly dedicated to security, Anton has built Origo’s security solutions, a team of great talent and knowledge which delivers world class services to demanding customers across industries.
Information Security Professional, With Decades of Experience in Information Security
Theódór has decades of experience of working professionally in the space of offensive information security with his interests focusing on penetration testing, exploit development, offensive tooling and vulnerability research. Theódór has performed security assessments, penetration testing, incident response, and security consulting for many of large global organizations, including financial, government, and other technology oriented companies. Theódór currently leads the operations team at Syndis and is helping to drive the Syndis vision forward.
He is a popular instructor and speaker in Iceland, having for instance taught university-level technical computer security courses at both the University of Iceland and Reykjavik University between 2012-2015. Theódór has also presented at various conferences on state-of-the-art topics relating to information security.
Prior to co-founding Syndis, Theódór worked for Capacent, TERIS, and KPMG, where he performed technical offensive security consulting and assessments.
Sjaldan er ein Báran stök
Bára is the project manager of Syndis, both her masters and undergrad degrees end with A´s giving her the least technical background of Syndis Employees and her aim is to keep it that way. Bára has extensive management experience and has been working on streamlining processes and automation within financial acquiring institution for several years. Her favorite position is to work with both tech and business and get things done.
Altmuligmand
Bjarni Hallgrímur is the business manager of Syndis. He holds a B.Sc. degree in mathematics from the University of Iceland and a M.Sc. degree in financial economics - both with first grade.
Where business meets tech, automating procedures to increase efficiency is Bjarni’s strength. Despite a young age, Bjarni has a lot of experience in management. Prior to Syndis, Bjarni worked as a team leader and a project manager in software development for Iceland’s largest acquiring company. Alongside that, Bjarni worked at the University of Iceland in teaching development and as a research analyst.
CVO; Chief Vibes Officer
Hörn is the designated people person at Syndis. She holds a B.Sc. degree in psychology and a M.Sc. in human resources, both from the University of Iceland. Before joining Syndis she worked in an HR department at a software company, gaining experience in the world of tech. Previously she comes from the airline industry, which introduced her to the importance of security that she now channels at Syndis.
Woof!
Woof woof woof woof WOOF WOOF woof woof Woof WOOF!
Information Security Management Consultancy
The Business Continuer
Ebenezer is a seasoned Information security leader with academic and hands-on experience in information security including software development, Information security consultation and a decade as a Chief Information Security Officer of a European financial company. He is a Certified Information Security Manager (CISM), Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH), ISO/IEC 27001 Lead auditor and has many years as a PCI-ISA under his belt. He has given numerous lectures on information security at various public events.
Ebenezer places particular emphasis on positive security culture and security as a business enabler, aligned with business goals.
The Pragmatic Practitioner
Before joining Syndis, Björn spent over 10 years at a global information security company performing PCI DSS audits and providing information security consulting. Björn’s clients included multinational merchants and financial institutions from all over Europe. Prior to working with IT security full-time, Björn was responsible for the IT operations of various organizations.
Björn is an Electrical engineer from the University of Iceland and has a M.Sc. in Information security from KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm where he lived for 12 years. He is a ISACA Certified Information Security Manager (CISM), BSI ISO 27001 Lead Auditor, and was, prior to joining Syndis, a PA-QSA and PCI SSC QSA since 2010.
The Master of Information Management
Erla has a B.Sc degree in business from the University of Iceland and worked in the banking industry alongside her studies. After graduating, Erla spent 5 years as a project manager and CISO of a supervised company under the Icelandic FSA, where she ensured compliance with legislation and guidelines (i.a. EBA, GDPR) and performed internal audits. While working closely with developers and system managers, she gained an interest in IT and Information Security and is currently working toward a Masters degree in Information Management at Reykjavík University. Erla joined Syndis from Origo where she was involved in compliance, quality management and process improvement.
Breaking Bad meets Information Security
Guðríður has over 5 years of experience as a Quality and Information Security Manager in the pharmaceutical industry and was responsible for maintaining an ISO/IEC 27001 certification. Her experience includes, but is not limited to, change management, internal and external audits, computer system validation, risk management and training employees in awareness and information security.
Guðríður has a scientific background with a B.Sc and M.Sc in Pharmaceutical Sciences. She is a certified Lead Auditor in ISO/IEC 27001 and is a certified D-level Project Manager. She loves structure and things that are well organized and her passion is to make information security attractive.
Hacker of the Stars
Guðrún Valdís graduated cum laude with a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Princeton University. Prior to joining Syndis, Guðrún Valdís was a penetration tester on Aon’s Cyber Solutions’ Security Testing team in New York. There, she focused primarily on web and mobile application penetration testing and security code reviews. Guðrún Valdís joined Syndis as a penetration tester, but pivoted into information security management when Syndis’s Information Security Management Consultancy team was established. Guðrún Valdís is also Syndis’s CISO.
Since then, Guðrún has gained significant experience with information security management, including everything from ISO27001 implementation, certification and maintenance to Business Continuity Planning. Guðrún Valdís is a firm believer in a positive security culture and frequently visits companies to give security awareness talks on various topics, which emphasize the importance of a positive security culture. As a part of her consulting work, Guðrún is also a part-time CISO for a publicly traded company here in Iceland.
Technical security
Engineering & Hardware Nut
Jóhann joined Syndis after a 5 year career in software development where he held positions as both a senior developer and an engineering lead. He completed his BSc degree in Software Engineering from Reykavík University in 2012 and in 2016 he graduated with distinction from UCLs MSc program in Software Systems Engineering. He is an avid hardware nerd and in his spare time he builds things ranging from automated gardening systems and keyboards to remote control airplanes.
Professional Tinkerer
Níels has been surrounded by computers since birth and amazed by their capabilities since the age of five. At fourteen years old, he taught himself programming, tinkered a bit too much and accidentally destroyed his first computer. He went on to study more programming and eventually won himself a scholarship at Reykjavík University where he got a B.Sc. in Computer Science and Discrete Mathematics. Whilst attending Reykjavík University he found a passion for both automation and security.
Lion Tamer
Jakob has decades of experience in automation, information security and open source tools. Tinkering with electronics from childhood led him into electrical engineering before he got into programming and finished a diploma in applied computing.
Before joining Syndis, Jakob’s experience includes infrastructure
engineering, operations management and the DevOps alphabet where he
worked on looking busy from dusk to dawn where automation is a key
element (autoconfigure && make look-busy && make
automatic-install).
The Tux
Sigursteinn Bjarni holds a B.Sc degree in Computer Science from Reykjavík University. For the past years Bjarni has been working as a Linux System Administrator where his main focus was on infrastructure, devops tools and cloud technologies. Bjarni is a die-hard Linux fanatic who feels best at home in his windowless shell.
Analytical Thinker
Has extensive experience in back- and front-end software development in healthcare, insurance, finance, tourism and real estate projects. Moved to Iceland in 2012. Believes that the Cloud and Security will solve world problems. Pavel holds a BSc degree in Computer Science from Assumption University of Thailand and Magister degree in Software Engineering from Mälardalen University in Sweden. During spare time monitors the price of BRK.A stock.
The Apprentice
Steinar completed his bachelors degree in software engineering from Reykjavík University. For his final project, he developed a tool designed for detecting BEC attacks. This resulted in the catching of a real email attack on an Icelandic business which was prevented and reported to the police. In university, Steinar was introduced to the world of CTF competitions and found his passion for penetration testing and security.
The Chef
Siggi, as called by his friends and Coworkers has extensive experience in the IT sector spanning 20+ years with a degree in computer engineering, designing and implementing Data-Centers for Online gambling solutions on a large scale, where focus on security, stability and scalability was the key. Having gone through almost every aspect of the IT sector, like working in telecommunication networking, DevOps, infrastructure engineering and Operation management, Siggi is also a trained chef and can cook up all kinds of scrumptious food!
Before joining Syndis Siggi spent his last 10 years working on creating automation in industrial machinery at Marel with focus on developing container solutions with automatic deployments, data collection where the focus was on secure endpoint solutions to make maintenance of industrial machinery automatic.
Gamithra has always thought of computers as friends and people as arrays of ones and zeros, and how to code those people to take action towards positive social change with help from her electronic sidekicks. Her passion for figuring out how a piece of information gets from point A to point B got her a job as a security consultant at NCC Group in 2020, and later as a security engineer at Syndis after a detour through CCP Games and a gamified marketing startup.
She loves nothing more than making space for effective systems and new approaches, and when she’s not hacking your servers, she’s working on her startup ideas and winning hackathons.
Developer gone rogue
From a young age, Guðni has been messing around with all kinds of gizmos and gadgets, trying to understand how they work. It was this obsessive curiosity that led him into the world of computers. His technical career began in business software development and integration in 2014, after graduating with a BSc degree in Computer Science. After growing increasingly fascinated with computer security - and frustrated at the widespread lack of interest therein - he moved to Denmark to pursue a MSc degree in Computer Science and Engineering with a deep focus on technical security. He returned home to work on enforcing security governance and compliance in business software integration after graduating, before joining Syndis in 2022. Guðni’s experience has equipped him with an intuition for system vulnerabilities, and his curiosity drives him to seek them out.
The Computer Whisperer
Exhausted by the heat of northern France in winter, Alexandre moved to Iceland and joined Syndis in 2022. Passionate about cybersecurity since he was young, he knew that he belonged in computer security the day he received a formal letter from the secondary school principal kindly asking him to stop tinkering with the school’s website.
Since then, he has graduated from ISEN with a degree in computer engineering. He has now been working in cybersecurity since 2017 and has fulfilled different roles, from cybersecurity researcher to incident response handler. He also taught offensive cybersecurity at the university for a few years. When Alexandre isn’t at his computer, he’s probably off exploring the island OR attending hacker meetings.
Software
Bossman
Björn Orri has over a decade of experience in international software development.
He was one of the first employees at Tempo and most recently in the role of Lead Architect having previously performed in roles as a DevOps, Backend, Frontend engineer to leading multiple cross functional and cross discipline teams and projects ranging from software development to merges and acquisitions.
Björn has a B.Sc degree from the University of Iceland.
Coding Genius
Hjalti’s background is both in academia and software development. After completing his B.Sc. degree in Mathematics and M.Sc. degree in Computer Science from Reykjavík University, he went on to become adjunct lecturer at the university. As an educator his focus was mainly on improving students’ problem solving skills by developing automated grading and feedback systems.
Prior to joining Syndis, Hjalti worked as a developer for two software companies.
Frontend developer & product designer
Valgeir has a B.Sc degree in Computer Science from Reykjavík University. He’s passionate about JavaScript and is always up-to-date with the ever-changing ecosystem.
He has extensive experience with building and designing web applications as well as creating and maintaining component libraries. He loves being able to see how code translates into the look and layout of a UI.
SOC
Cloud Defender
Gudlaugur joined Syndis from Origo where he focused mainly on securing organizations, responding to security incidents and securing and implementing cloud solutions. Gudlaugur has worked with many leading information security products and acquired multiple industry certificates from cloud vendors. He completed his B.Sc. and a M.Sc. degree in Computer Science from Reykjavík University.
Guardian of the Cyberspace
Tómas holds an M.Sc. in Electrical engineering from KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, from a Network Services and Systems program. In his studies he focused on information and network security and his Master thesis was an implementation of TLS security for cloud connected resource constrained IoT devices at RISE SICS research institute.
Before that he completed B.Sc. degrees from University of Iceland in both Electrical and computer engineering and Computer science.
After moving back to Iceland, he joined a newly formed security department at Nýherji, later Origo. His focus over the years at Origo has mostly been on implementation and consultation around security products from IBM. In addition to his general security consultation, he also has used his programming knowledge to work on automation and custom integration between different systems.
Firewall Protector
Mohammad holds a B.Sc degree in Network and Security Engineering from the Jordan University of Science and Technology. Mohammad has held multiple information security related positions, from security consultation to incident handling and SOC team lead for many of the biggest bank in the middle east. After moving to Iceland. Mohammad joined Origo’s and now Syndis´ security team and work on several security projects in conjunction with consultation and incident.
Guðmundur hold various security certifications such as Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) and many more from IBM Security, Forcepoint & Microsoft as well as an MPM degree from EAE. Prior to joining Syndis he had over a decade’s worth of experience working in the field of security. This includes providing consultancy services in regards to Security Information & Event Management (SIEM), SoC operations, Web, Email and Data Security services etc.
Jack of Many Trades
Svanberg lives and breaths IT security. He is brought up in the financial sector where security is a matter most importance. He has vast experience as system administration and has more than 20 year background in IT in the financial sector. He is persistent and solution oriented and tries to view things from various angles.
Poland Office
SOC
Kamil started his cybersecurity journey in 2014 when he joined Security Operations Center in Atos as a Security Analyst and later as Security Engineer. He moved to F-Secure, where he was creating from scratch Team of highly skilled Threat Analysts for MDR service, first as an Analyst and then promoted to Team Lead position. During his stay in F-Secure, he has accomplished SANS Forensics certification. After that, he moved back to Atos as Senior Security analyst and then to Software Mind to live the life of a SOC Analyst. He was not convinced that this role is what he really wanted and was looking for a Team Lead position which was available in Syndis.
Piotr Mross is the Lead Security Analyst for Syndis’ SOC Team. Piotr has started his career in cyber security in 2019 as a Security Analyst at the company Atos. Working in a first line response team for SoC allowed him to gain knowledge and experience related to incident response. To pursue his ever-growing interest in cyber security Piotr joined Syndis.
Artur has a Master’s degree in Biotechnology from Bydgoszcz University of Technology, but he has been interested in IT since his youth. After a few years in a lab coat he decided to focus on Cybersecurity. It started with Atos Security Operations Academy and then working as a first line Security Analyst. Artur was promoted to Shift Leader after one year at Security Operations Center. This allowed him to develop his skills in both cyber security and team management. He was also part of the SOAR implementation team where he was responsible for creating playbooks. During his five-year career as a security analyst, he also obtained several security certifications.
Czarek has always had a passion for computers from his early ages. He started discovering cybersecurity while working as an Investigator at PayPal while investigating potentially suspicious user activities including cybercrime. Next point on the road was a Security Analyst job at Atos where he gained his first experience while working hard and continued to improve his knowledge by doing daily laboratories. All the hard work has paid off as now he is looking for new Challenges here at Syndis where he is extremely happy to be.
Lukasz started his journey with Information Technology as a technical IT support agent. Lukasz’s growing interest in cyber security led him to getting the Cybersecurity Essentials - Cisco Networking Academy certification. This theoretical background allowed him to participate in an Atos Academy focused on Cyber Security. In 2020, Lukasz started a full time job as a cyber security analyst. After almost 2 years, he joined Syndis as a security analyst for further skills and career development.
While not formally educated in IT Szymon received his knowledge from the ground up and in a hard way- starting as a data entry clerk in a Polish insurance company he then moved on to serve as a helpdesk consultant for one of the biggest British national companies. That meant that if users could not locate their Start Menu or find their desktop icons he was there to ask them if they tried to turn it off and on again. Through two years of phone after phone he made his way to become a SOC Analyst - a job he has been performing since then and he does not phone it in!
Karol has master degree in Sports Science gained in Physical Education Academy located in Posen but this was not the path he wanted to follow. Some time after graduation he decided to start with Cybersecurity. At first it was Security Operations Center Academy to learn some skills and then he started to work as a first line Security Analyst at Atos. Looking for new challenges he joined SOC Team here at Syndis.
Someone missing?
We are always interested in hearing from talented people with a passion for cyber security!