Brief Bio:
Christian / The Cyber Ninja / Child Hacker / Cyber Security Ambassador / Keynote Speaker / Youngest Shaolin Do Kung Fu Black Belt awardee in America / Founder of CyberShaolin / USA Gymnast / Drummer / Video-gamer
Full Bio:
Cyber Security Ambassador, Child Hacker, Keynote Speaker, Black Belt in Shaolin Do Kung Fu (2nd degree), USA Gymnast, Video-gamer, Cyber Ninja Kid and Christian are some of the titles used to describe Reuben Paul aka “RAPst4r”, the Founder of CyberShaolin.
Reuben was featured in 2014 by Microsoft Network (MSN) as a child prodigy in the world, when he was only 8 years old for his hacking skills and presentations. Now 15 years old, Reuben is an invited speaker and has delivered over 25 keynotes and presentations covering various cybersecurity topics ranging from hacking children’s smart toys, Windows and Android operating systems, password cracking, hacking mobile devices, malware and social engineering with live demonstrations. He has been featured at several industry leading security conferences such as (ISC)2Security Congress, RSA, DerbyCon, Hack In The Box (HITB) HaxPo (Netherlands), Houston Security Conference, BSides Austin, Ground Zero InfoSec (India), GeekFest Berlin, Secure Poland, Kaspersky Security Analyst Summit (Spain), Cybersecurity Asia (Malaysia), GibCyber (Gibraltar) and the International One Conference (Netherlands). He even shared the stage as a co-keynote speaker with Ms. Glover-Jones, the CIO of the Defense Intelligence Agency in the 2017 Department of Defense Intelligence Information Systems (DoDIIS) worldwide conference. His demonstrations of hacking smart toys and talks on “Creating a Safe and Secure Cyber World for kids (by a kid)”, “Developing r00t-kidz: The Future of Cybersecurity” and his debut talk entitled “InfoSec from the mouth of babes (or an 8 year old)” has been quoted and referenced by several information security sources and news agencies that call him a “Child Hacker”. They have become a source of inspiration to kids and adults alike to start teaching CyberSecurity to kids.
Reuben was featured as a hacker kid in the 15 under 15: rising stars in cybersecurity. When kids from all over the world started to write to him, expressing an interest to learn from him, Reuben wanted to help them by making educational content that would teach them what he was learning. When his parents asked him if he wanted to charge for his videos, he responded “No, the content that we develop should be free and accessible to any kid anywhere in the world.” Respecting his wishes, his parents helped Reuben found a cybersecurity awareness and education organization called CyberShaolin. CyberShaolin has the mission to educate, equip and empower kids with cybersecurity knowledge, using videos and games that he develops when he is done with his homework and sports training. It is a non-profit organization and Reuben would like you to get involved and join hands with him to raise cybersecurity awareness in the community.
Reuben is also honored to become the youngest person to have received the Shaolin Do Kung Fu Black Belt in America which was featured in Fox TV news channel Austin story “7 year old earns Black Belt” and is now a 2nd degree black belt (earned August 26, 2015). He was the one of the top 70 gymnasts in the USA Gymnastics Nationals (2017), gold medalist in the 2014 USA Gymnastics State competition for the ‘rings’ category and one of the top 10 gymnasts in the 2013 State finals. When he was two years old, Reuben was also crowned as America’s Most Beautiful Baby by New Star Discovery.
Reuben’s twitter handle is @RAPst4r and he has over 3300 followers. He has also been painted
by the artist Eddie Mize for his contributions to the world of cybersecurity.
Reuben’s story of how he got started has been made into a comic book by the Hackerstrip book called “The Cyber Ninja“