Raúl Riesco
Lead Security Auditor at Polygon · Founder of BWH Academy
27 Years Breaking and Securing Systems
I have been in cybersecurity since 1999 — before smart contracts existed, before blockchain was a word, before most “security experts” wrote their first line of code.
Today, I am the Lead Security Auditor at Polygon (since March 2023), where I help secure one of the most complex blockchain ecosystems in the world:
- Zero-Knowledge proofs — zkEVM, Plonky2/3
- Cross-chain bridges — Vault bridge architecture
- AggLayer — unifying liquidity across L2 chains
- PoS consensus — security at scale
- Custom AI hunting tools — thousands of vulnerability patterns
Before Polygon, I co-founded Babylon Finance, a DeFi protocol where I served as Chief Security Officer. The protocol was never hacked despite constant sophisticated attacks — a track record I am genuinely proud of.
My career spans multinational companies, government agencies, and cutting-edge startups across traditional infosec, red teaming, threat intelligence, and blockchain security.
Why I Created BWH Academy
After 27 years in the field, I have seen a clear pattern: the security talent gap in blockchain is massive and growing. Most training programs teach theory. I teach what I actually do — every single day.
BWH Academy is my personal project to change that. A place where I share real-world security methodology, not textbook exercises.
“AI amplifies what you are. An expert with AI becomes 10x. A novice with AI becomes -20x. The middle is dead.”
This is what I call the AI Amplification Effect — and it is the core thesis behind everything I teach. The Master Program builds the foundation that AI multiplies.
What I Bring to the Table
- 200+ security audits completed
- 27 years of hands-on cybersecurity
- Custom AI hunting tools with thousands of patterns
- DeFi, L1/L2, bridges, ZK, and PoS experience
- Published researcher and conference speaker
- Passionate about training the next generation
Ready to Level Up Your Security Skills?
Learn blockchain security from someone who secures a $3B+ ecosystem daily.
TWITTER FEED
At 23:00 CET on 05.03.25, the 1inch team discovered a vulnerability in resolver smart contracts using the obsolete Fusion v1 implementation. No end-user funds were at risk—only resolvers using Fusion v1 in their own contracts.
Polygon PoS still 👑 with continuous innovation from the amazing team led by Sandeep Sreenath @ssandeep
Espectacular acogida en mi charla de hoy en @rootedcon @criptored #seguridad #blockchain
It is nice to see the great spanish white hacking community getting more interested in #Crypto as a career path
A couple of months ago, @asymmetric_re reached out to us with a potential critical vulnerability in the PoS bridge.
We started working on fixing the bug and verifying the vulnerability impact in parallel.
We had the fix rolled out even before our teams could figure out a viable