Carlos Alvarez

Carlos has been working at the intersection of law and technology since 1998. As a consultant for the Inter-American Committee Against Terrorism (CICTE) of the Organization of American States, he is the Director of the Hub for the Americas and Caribbean of the Global Forum on Cyber Expertise (GFCE). At the same time, he leads TangoDownSquad, an initiative that he launched in July of 2024 aimed at disrupting cybercriminal operations globally and supporting law enforcement, threat researchers, and incident response teams, as well as policymakers in key related areas.

For nearly 15 years, he was with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), first as a team leader in Contractual Compliance and later as a relationship leader for global cyber law enforcement, the cyber threat intelligence community, and the cyber incident response community. Carlos is a Member of the Board of Directors of the Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST), where he co-founded the DNS Abuse Special Interest Group (DNS Abuse SIG). He is also founder of the Anti-Phishing Special Interest Group (Anti-Phishing SIG) and the Names and Numbers Committee, both at the Messaging, Malware and Mobile Anti-Abuse Working Group (M3AAWG).

Carlos has been recognized for his contributions to cybersecurity. In 2023, he received the Collaboration Award during a confidential meeting happening at the same time as Blackhat and Defcon in Las Vegas. Also, in 2021, he was honored with the International Partner of the Year award by the Cybercrime Bureau of the Korean National Police Agency.

His expertise spans cyber policy, legislation, and regulation. With a legal background and strong analytical and communication skills, he effectively bridges the gap between technical topics and non-technical audiences, including policymakers and C-suite executives. As a cybercrime investigations and threat intelligence expert, he has supported numerous cybercrime units and cyber threat intelligence teams in real-world investigations. Since 2000, he has organized and delivered numerous training sessions and events for law enforcement, the private sector, and government officials.

Before joining ICANN, Carlos participated in the International Attorneys Program at Holland & Knight in Miami and led the Legal & Business Affairs Division at Sony Music for Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, and Peru. In this role, he was a member of the Andean legal committee of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI). A pioneer in Latin America in software anti-piracy, information security law, and cybercrime, he has published articles on piracy and terrorism, cybercrime, botnets, digital evidence, criminal aspects of honeypots, legal considerations of information security standards, legislation and regulation, DDoS attacks, and related topics.

He has also taught computer law, legal aspects of information security, and intellectual property at two universities in Bogotá. Additionally, he has lectured before C-suite executives, government officials, regulators, law enforcement, and military and intelligence personnel across four continents.

Carlos holds a law degree from Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, a Master of Laws (LL.M.) from the University of Southern California Gould School of Law, and has completed studies in networking with TCP/IP at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).