the correlation might be due more to means to fund the activity more so then the "type" of people.
Possibly. I don't know a lot of furries, I've worked with some and met some over the years who openly identified with it, but they all worked in various tech roles (not necessarily development).
The cybersecurity community is an interesting social situation and the conference circuit is segmented into some interesting crowds. Black Hat in the earlier days was more technically driven, but over time became more CISO/managerial focused - vendors would come to sell their shitty products and services there with booths and all the drama around that, but you wouldn't see someone walking around with a mohawk or in half a fursuit after a certain point in the events history. There are a handful of events tailored to that and there's basically 0 overlap with groups like furries.
Then you have events like Defcon (which takes place immediately after Black Hat finishes), which used to take place in this super shitty hotel in Vegas (I had blood and hair on the walls of my room the first year I went). It tends to draw a more mixed crowd, but you get presenters and participants that will be what most would consider more fringe. Things some wouldn't bat an eye at, but wouldn't be seen in some environments (heavily tattooed, different hairstyles, etc) up to people wearing partial fursuits and giving talks. You'd have a number of presenters identifying openly as part of social groups that wouldn't have been as accepted in the former category. There are a few others like this but IMO most of this has steadily phased out aside from Defcon.
It's an interesting social situation with what sometimes feels like two different worlds that are so close together yet really far apart, but someone having spoken at Defcon and doing some of the things he's supposedly done for the furry community doesn't surprise me at all and there is some significant overlap there, maybe partly financial, but I also just think people are more likely to identify with fringe movements like Defcon out of interest and do the same with other social movements.