About

Ventral Digital LLC is a research and consultancy firm specializing in Information Security and Privacy.

The term ventral (ven-truhl; of or relating to the venter or belly; abdominal.) is conventionally used in medical context. To us, it represents the excitement and seemingly endless flow of energy one experiences when both the intellectual and primal interests are in alignment.

Patrick Drotleff (patrickd)


GitHub𝕏

Previous to being a Security Researcher, Patrick worked in the Web2/SaaS space for over 10 years, writing and reviewing code, always feeling drawn towards the security aspects of technology. During these years he developed a keen sense for identifying edge cases and became well-practiced at technical writing that breaks down complex topics into intuitive explanations. He finally broke into the Web3/Blockchain space through the very first Secureum Bootcamp and was selected as a mentor due to his continued activity as alumni. Patrick has since worked as an independent consultant in BlockSec, reviewed various projects together with other independent researchers at Spearbit, and endeavored into many rabbit holes on the Ventral Digital blog. Drawing inspiration from The Sovereign Individual, Patrick advocates for the development and securing of key technologies that enhance privacy and promote decentralization.

Since 2021

Independent Security Researcher in Web3/Blockchain

  • Secureum Bootcamp Mentor and Epoch 0 alumni
  • Security Research Contractor at Spearbit
  • Audited projects such as Cozy Finance, Paladin, Art Gobblers, and SushiSwap
  • Consultant/vCISO for Optimism's Bedrock upgrade
2018 - 2021

Freelance Senior Backend/DevOps Engineer

  • Technologies: AWS, Azure, Kubernetes
  • Specialized in refactoring, migration, and design of SaaS APIs with cloud services
  • Organized company internal CTF challenges for developers
2016 - 2018

SaaS/JS Senior Backend Developer, DevOps, full-time @ maloon GmbH

  • Technologies: ELK Stack
  • Specialized in research, prototyping, and quality/security reviews
  • Responsible for evaluation of applicant developers
2013 - 2016

SaaS/JS Backend Developer, DevOps, part-time student @ maloon GmbH

  • Technologies: CoffeeScript, JavaScript, TypeScript, MongoDB, NodeJS, MongoDB, ElasticSearch, RabbitMQ, Redis
  • Implemented data synchronization services between various databases
  • Implemented web crawlers for sales lead generation processes
2011 - 2013

Drupal/PHP Developer, DevOps, part-time student @ maloon GmbH

  • Technologies: Drupal, PHP, nginx, Apache2 (SUExec), haproxy, LXC
  • Research & Development of Social Media synchronization MVPs
  • Mentor in the Drupal Community and responsible for security/quality reviews of contributed plugins
  • Created various online tools, such as simplytest.me, easing the testing and review of Drupal patches and modules
2011

Started Bachelor of Science in Information Technology @ TH Ingolstadt

  • Technologies: LaTeX, JavaScript, PHP, Perl, Java, C, Assembly, WebGL, SQL, GWT, LUA
  • Game design with Löve engine, mobile game optimization
  • Thesis on SaaS API design