Veronica Schmitt

Forensicator, hacker and educator. I build the logs, labs and tools that let systems tell us what actually happened.

From the lab to the lecture hall

I started in digital forensics in 2008, driven by curiosity and a refusal to accept “good enough” answers. Since then I have chased logs, malware and attackers across government, the private sector, healthcare and academia, with more than a decade of international DFIR casework, some of it presented in court.

Making safety-critical devices explain themselves

My PhD at the University of Plymouth focuses on forensic-ready logging for medical device manufacturers: how attackers could exploit connected devices, what artefacts remain, and how logging can be engineered so incident response becomes a design principle instead of a post-incident scramble. Alongside this I have spent several years researching ransomware behaviour.

I rely on an implanted medical device myself, so this work is personal. Protecting people whose lives depend on technology is not an abstract exercise. It is mission-driven engineering.

Things I build

Teaching, tinkering and reverse engineering

I love teaching. I build malware labs, containment war games, investigative scenarios and serious games that make students think like responders rather than passive observers. Watching a student move from uncertainty to competence is one of the best parts of the job.

Outside the classroom I take apart medical devices to understand how embedded systems log, communicate and fail, and I have a healthy obsession with reverse engineering ransomware: unpacking payloads, mapping execution flow and tracing persistence. Some people collect shoes. I collect samples.

Community

If there is a whiteboard and a slightly chaotic idea, I am probably involved.