As Black Hat USA 2025 approaches, the cybersecurity world is buzzing with innovation—and Dropzone AI is right at the center of it. With roots in Seattle and a mission to bring true intelligence into the security operations center (SOC), the Dropzone AI team is gearing up for a packed week in Las Vegas, from BSides to the AI Summit, and finally at Startup City (booth #6427).
As Black Hat USA 2025 approaches, the cybersecurity world is buzzing with innovation—and Dropzone AI is right at the center of it. With roots in Seattle and a mission to bring true intelligence into the security operations center (SOC), the Dropzone AI team is gearing up for a packed week in Las Vegas, from BSides to the AI Summit, and finally at Startup City (booth #6427).
Founded by Edward Wu, former Head of AI/ML at ExtraHop Networks, Dropzone AI was built on a key realization: the last thing SOCs need is another flood of alerts. Instead, they need help processing and acting on them. That’s where Dropzone comes in—offering an AI-powered security analyst that doesn’t just detect threats, but investigates, correlates, and takes action.
During a recent pre-event chat with ITSPmagazine’s Sean Martin and Marco Ciappelli, Edward explained the core philosophy behind the platform. Unlike hype-driven claims of “fully autonomous SOCs,” Dropzone takes a practical, tiered approach to automation. Their agentic AI system performs full investigations, determines the nature of alerts (true vs. false positives), and recommends or executes containment actions depending on risk tolerance and policy.
The tech has found particular traction with lean security teams, or those expanding toward 24/7 coverage without adding headcount. Rather than replacing humans, the platform augments them—freeing analysts from the drudgery of low-priority alert triage and giving them space to focus on strategic work. As Edward put it, “Nobody wants to be a tier-one analyst forever.” Dropzone helps make sure they don’t have to be.
The platform integrates across existing security stacks and data sources, drawing from threat intel, logs, and endpoint signals to build a full picture of every alert. Security teams retain full control, with human-in-the-loop decision-making remaining the standard in most use cases. However, for low-risk assets and off-hours scenarios, some customers are already authorizing autonomous action.
With conversations at Black Hat expected to revolve around the reality of AI in production—not just the vision—Dropzone is entering the perfect arena. From demonstrating real-world impact to sharing insights on agentic design and trust boundaries, their presence will resonate with everyone from analysts to CISOs.
Whether you’re building out your SOC, questioning your MDR provider, or simply overwhelmed with alert fatigue, this may be your signal. Dropzone AI isn’t selling buzzwords. They’re delivering results. Visit them at Startup City, booth #6427, and see for yourself what the future of alert triage and SOC efficiency looks like—one investigation at a time.
Note: This story contains promotional content. Learn more.
Guests:
Edward Wu, Founder/CEO at Dropzone AI
On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/edwardxwu/
DROPZONE AI: https://itspm.ag/dropzoneai-641
Hosts:
Sean Martin, Co-Founder at ITSPmagazine | Website: https://www.seanmartin.com
Marco Ciappelli, Co-Founder at ITSPmagazine | Website: https://www.marcociappelli.com
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Dropzone AI – Black Hat USA 2025 Pre-Event Chat
Sean Martin:
[00:00:00] Marco.
Marco Ciappelli:
Sean. Happy birthday.
Sean Martin:
Happy birthday—but not to you. Happy Wednesday!
Marco Ciappelli:
Happy birthday to ITSPmagazine at Black Hat!
Sean Martin:
I know—11 years old this year. Can you believe it? We’ve crossed into year eleven.
Marco Ciappelli:
I feel old.
Sean Martin:
I feel really old.
Marco Ciappelli:
Well, ITSPmagazine can’t even drive yet. It’s not that old.
Sean Martin:
True. But we’re driving to Vegas from LA.
Marco Ciappelli:
Exactly. It’s one of our classic road trip kickoffs for Black Hat Las Vegas coverage. A bit of a tradition at this point. We’ll drive through the desert, probably stop along the way, maybe do a recording—depends how we feel once the heat kicks in.
Sean Martin:
I’ll be on the lookout for Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner.
Marco Ciappelli:
That’s the spirit. But seriously, Sean, it’s shaping up to be a great year. Conferences are back in full swing all over the world. We just got back from London, and now—Vegas! And I’m especially excited because we have Edward with us today.
Sean Martin:
Yes! Edward, good to see you. We’re glad to have you on. And even more excited to meet you and the Dropzone AI team in person in Las Vegas. Before we get into what you’re doing at the event, can you tell us a bit about yourself and your role at the company?
Edward Wu:
Absolutely. I’m Edward, the founder and CEO of Dropzone AI. We’re a Seattle-based cybersecurity startup building AI-powered security analysts using large language models.
Before Dropzone, I spent eight years at ExtraHop Networks, where I built their AI/ML and detection products from scratch. So I’ve personally generated millions of security alerts—and in the process, overwhelmed quite a few SOC teams.
That experience made it clear: security teams don’t need another alert cannon. They need help processing and investigating alerts. That’s why I started Dropzone—to automate alert investigations from end to end.
Sean Martin:
Love that. I just wrote an article about this—looking at AI agents as “first responders” in triage. There’s so much that automation can do to reduce noise and free up human analysts. Can you give us an overview of what Dropzone AI actually does and how it impacts a SOC or broader security program?
Edward Wu:
Sure. Think of Dropzone as your AI security analyst. It takes in alerts, de-duplicates them, pivots across your internal tools and external intelligence sources, and runs a full autonomous investigation. At the end, it makes a call: is it a true or false positive?
If it’s a false positive, the system dismisses it automatically. If it’s a true positive, it can escalate or even contain the threat—depending on your policies.
The result? It’s like giving your team an army of tireless AI bots, so the humans can focus on real threats and higher-value work.
Marco Ciappelli:
That all sounds amazing—and promising. But there’s always a bit of anxiety around AI in cybersecurity. People worry about letting the machine take action. What’s your approach to this “agentic” behavior at Dropzone?
Edward Wu:
Great question. There’s definitely a lot of hype right now around AI agents. We’re seeing vendors tout “autonomous SOCs” with zero human involvement. But most of the security teams we talk to aren’t comfortable handing over full control.
What we’re seeing is: they’re open to AI doing the investigation and making a recommendation—but they want a human to make the final call on remediation. So Dropzone is designed with that human-in-the-loop model in mind.
That said, it’s evolving. For some customers, under specific conditions—like weekend coverage or low-risk assets—they do authorize the AI to take action without waiting. It’s all about balancing risk and context.
Marco Ciappelli:
So… no magic “easy” button. Which might actually be a good thing.
Edward Wu:
Exactly. It’s a progression, not a leap.
Sean Martin:
I was just poking around your website and saw the ROI calculator. Super useful—shows how much time and money a company can save using Dropzone versus hiring additional analysts. That’s just the beginning.
Let’s pivot to Black Hat. You’ve got a big week lined up, right? Tell us what you’ll be doing in Vegas.
Edward Wu:
Yeah, it’s going to be a busy one.
We’ll be at BSides Las Vegas early in the week, then presenting at the Black Hat AI Summit on Tuesday. After that, we’ll be in Startup City at Black Hat on Wednesday and Thursday—booth #6427.
We’ll be demoing the tech, talking to attendees about how agentic AI works in real environments, and sharing our perspective on what it means to safely put this tech into production.
Sean Martin:
You’re in the right place. Black Hat, BSides, DEF CON—these events bring in the exact audience that needs to see what you’re doing: analysts, engineers, leaders, buyers. And they’re all trying to make smarter decisions for their SOCs and their businesses.
Edward Wu:
Exactly. And while there’s still fear in some circles that AI will “take jobs,” cybersecurity is a unique space. There’s so much unmet demand for skilled professionals that AI is more of a force multiplier than a replacement.
In fact, many practitioners we meet are relieved—they want to focus on strategic and interesting work, not sift through low-value alerts all day. Dropzone helps them do that.
Marco Ciappelli:
Right, automation—AI or not—has always been the goal. So before we wrap, what kind of conversations do you expect to have in Vegas? What questions do you think people will be asking?
Edward Wu:
There’ll definitely be a lot of curiosity around how it all works—how we integrate with existing stacks, and how ready this tech really is for production.
People want to know if this is just cool marketing or something they can deploy now. And the answer is: it is ready, in the right conditions, for the right teams.
Sean Martin:
And is there a common trigger you’re seeing—where a team knows it’s time to bring in an AI analyst?
Edward Wu:
Yes. A big one is when a team is expanding their SOC—maybe even hiring across time zones for 24/7 coverage. That’s a great moment to ask: can software handle this instead?
Another is when teams are unhappy with their MDR provider. In some cases, replacing outsourced work with an internal AI agent is a better fit—more responsive, more transparent, more aligned with their specific needs.
Marco Ciappelli:
Perfect. And we’ll be having a follow-up chat with you in Vegas, so people can get the rest of the story then.
Sean Martin:
Yes! Everyone listening, be sure to visit Startup City, booth #6427, and connect with Edward and the Dropzone AI team. Check them out at BSides Las Vegas and the AI Summit at Black Hat too.
Thanks for joining us, Edward.
Marco Ciappelli:
We’ll see you in Vegas—Hacker Summer Camp is on!