Louis Nyffenegger

Louis created a substantial library of practical security exercises used worldwide by individual practitioners, banks and specialised security consultancies. The labs connect real vulnerabilities with source-code review, giving learners opportunities to reproduce weaknesses and understand fixes. Writing and international teaching extend that contribution, making security review methods accessible to engineering and security teams.

Louis Nyffenegger is the founder of PentesterLab, a hands-on training platform for web security and security code review. Based in Melbourne, Louis brings experience in penetration testing and application security. PentesterLab began in December 2011, putting exercises from an in-person training session at Ruxcon online so learners could work through them independently. After initially running the platform alongside a full-time security job, Louis moved to PentesterLab full-time in September 2018.

The platform now offers more than 700 labs and 700 video walkthroughs, including exercises based on CVEs. Learners reproduce attacks and examine the code, with walkthroughs explaining the weakness, exploitation and fix. Louis also wrote CVE Archeologist's Field Guide, exploring ten real-world vulnerabilities across four programming languages, and speaks internationally about security code review and secure coding. This combination of practical teaching, writing and speaking helps practitioners connect vulnerable behaviour to underlying code and recognise patterns during software reviews.