Satnam
Narang

For twenty years, I have worked in cybersecurity. I joined new platforms early and found myself in the presence of scammers as they began to write their playbooks. I documented my findings, sometimes before anyone else.

Selected findings

1. 2013

   First to document spam bots on Tinder.

2. 2015

   Discovered and mapped a 750,000-account Twitter spam botnet pushing diet pills. Twitter used my data to dismantle the operator and network.

3. 2019

   Mapped how scammers co-opted Cash App giveaways on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.

4. 2021

   Documented TikTok LIVE giftbaiting. The work was later cited in multiple state attorney general complaints against TikTok.

5. 2024

   Detailed pig butchering's cross-platform operations: Tinder, TikTok, WhatsApp, Telegram.

My research has been cited by the Alan Turing Institute and CISPA. I have been quoted by The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, and featured in the BBC World Service documentary The Big $ Giveaway.

At Tenable, I research emerging threats and major vulnerabilities. After years of watching organizations struggle to remediate them in time, I created the semantic layer and terminology behind Tenable's Vulnerability Watch, inspired by the World Health Organization's framework for classifying and monitoring SARS-CoV-2 variants.

The same instinct led me to create the Scam Classification & Mapping System (SC&MS), a common language for classifying scams, mapped from the victim's side. I also built Open Granth, a citation-first home for Sikh scripture, because language you can trust has to stay connected to its source.

I was the first in my family to graduate from college. Years later, I endowed an Information Systems scholarship at Cal State Fullerton so someone else's path might be a little easier. I back founders building technology I want to exist. I also write poetry and make music. And I spend a lot of time thinking about coffee, probably more than is warranted.