Clay Blankenship
AUTHOR

Clay Blankenship

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Clay Blankenship is a longtime cybersecurity leader, investigator, and former cop who has spent more than 30 years moving between patrol cars, courtrooms, and incident response “war rooms.” He began as a reserve officer in Port Townsend, Washington. He later served as a deputy and detective in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, where he helped build the sheriff’s office cybercrime and digital forensics program from scratch. During that time, he worked on high technology cases, led proactive online child exploitation investigations, and testified as a digital forensics expert in multiple courts.
After leaving the badge as a full-time role, he transitioned into the private sector, taking on senior positions with teams at IBM X Force, Navigant, Ankura Consulting, Tracepoint, and Booz Allen Hamilton. In these roles, he led digital forensics and incident response teams handling everything from ransomware outbreaks to complex corporate breaches for insurers, law firms, and Fortune 500 companies. Today, he serves as Chief Operating Officer of IronGate Cybersecurity, where he oversees incident response operations, helps shape investigative playbooks, trains analysts, and walks clients through some of the most difficult days of their professional lives.
Known for remaining calm when situations escalate, sometimes literally, he has trained hundreds of professionals in digital forensics and incident response and has spoken at conferences and academic institutions such as ISC², NetDiligence, Southern Methodist University School of Law, and SentinelOne’s OneCon. He holds multiple industry certifications, including CFCE, CCE, and CCFT, but believes real-world experience under pressure matters more than letters after a name.
Outside of his professional work, Clay is a hobbyist writer who grew up on a steady diet of science fiction, theological epics, crime stories, and supernatural drama. He writes the way he approached investigations, by chasing the human truth beneath the surface.
Clay has been awarded the Distinguished Author Award from The International Impact Book Awards for The Seraphs Rquiem: When Heaven Walks as Man.
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