the most trusted source for computer security training, certification and research
select a course
Orlando, FL - April 18 - 25, 2008
Global Information Assurance Certification

SANS is a great place to enhance your technical and hands on skills and tools. I thoroughly recommend it.
-Aaron Waugh, Datacom NZ Ltd.

Faculty for SANS 2008

Tanya Baccam
Tanya is a SANS senior instructor, as well as a SANS courseware author. She provides many security consulting services for clients such as system audits, vulnerability and risk assessments, database assessments, web application assessments and penetration testing. Tanya has previously worked as the Director of Assurance Services for a security services consulting firm, as well as being the Manager of Infrastructure Security for a healthcare organization. She also served as a Manager at Deloitte & Touche in the Security Services practice. Throughout her career, she's consulted with many clients about their security architecture, including areas such as perimeter security, network infrastructure design, system audits, web server security, and database security. She has played an integral role in developing multiple business applications and currently holds the CPA, GCFW, GCIH, CISSP, CISM, CISA, CCNA, CCSE, CCSA and Oracle DBA certifications.
top^
Chris Brenton
Chris Brenton is a private consultant with over ten years experience in the field. He is one of the founding members of the initial Honeynet Project, one of the original Internet Storm Center handlers, and started up one of the first managed security ISP's. Over the years, he's been credited with the discovery of numerous vulnerabilities in various software products. Along with being a published author, Chris is responsible for maintaining all of the material in the SANS Perimeter Security track. In his spare time, Chris teaches rally and high speed off road security driving where he can be found teaching students to make their side window the front of the car.
top^
Dr. Eric Cole, Ph.D.
Dr. Eric Cole is an industry recognized security expert, with over 15 year's hands-on experience. Dr. Cole currently performs leading edge security consulting and works in research and development to advance the state of the art in information systems security. Dr. Cole has experience in information technology, with a focus on perimeter defense, secure network design, vulnerability discovery, penetration testing, and intrusion detection systems. Dr. Cole has a Masters in Computer Science from NYIT, and a Ph.D. from Pace University with a concentration in Information Security. Dr. Cole is the author of several books including Hackers Beware, Hiding in Plain Site, Network Security Bible and Insider Threat. He is also the inventor of over 20 patents and is a researcher, writer, and speaker. Eric is also a senior scientist with Lockheed Martin Information Technology (LMIT) and Lockheed Martin (LM) fellow. Dr. Cole is actively involved with The SANS Technology Institute (STI) and SANS working with students, teaching, and maintaining and developing courseware.
top^
Charles Edge

Charles Edge lives and breathes technology. After attending the University of Georgia, Charles went on to begin his consulting career working with Support Technologies, Andersen Consulting. In January of 2000, Charles arrived at 318, a boutique technology consulting firm in Santa Monica, California. At 318, Charles has worked with Network Architecture, Infrastructure Design and Network Security for the many of the leaders in the film, commercial production, post-production, advertising, and design industries.

Charles is also the author of the Mac Tiger Server Little Black Book and the Web Admin Scripting Little Black Book.

Charles now resides in the Minneapolis area with his wife and dog where he is wrapping up his next set of books. Upcoming titles include Mac Security, Advanced Mac OS X Networking, and the Mac Leopard Server Little Black Book.

  • Charles will be teaching:
top^
Jason Fossen
Jason Fossen is a principal security consultant at Enclave Consulting LLC, a published author, and a frequent public speaker on Microsoft security issues. He is the sole author of the SANS Institute's week-long Securing Windows course (SEC505), maintains the "Windows day" of Security Essentials (SEC401.5), and has been involved in numerous other SANS projects since 1998. He was graduated from the University of Virginia, received his Master's degree from the University of Texas at Austin, and holds a number of professional certifications. He currently lives in Dallas, Texas.
top^
Jeff Frisk
Jeff currently serves as the Director of GIAC. He has worked on many projects for SANS including the On Demand product, courseware updates and GIAC exam development. Jeff has an engineering degree from RIT, The Rochester Institute of Technology. Jeff has held various positions including electronic systems and computer engineering, product development and operations management. He has many years of experience working with high-tech companies developing computer hardware and software products. Jeff has been involved with computer systems support and security for over 10 years.
top^
Bryce Galbraith
Bryce began his IT journey at 10 years of age with a Commodore 64 and a 300 baud modem – he never looked back. As a contributing author of the internationally bestselling book, Hacking Exposed: Network Security Secrets & Solutions, Bryce helped bring the secret world of hacking out of the darkness and into the public eye. Bryce has held security positions at global ISPs and Fortune 500 companies as well as being a Senior Consultant on Foundstone’s world renowned attack and penetration team. Bryce also served as Senior Instructor and co-author of Foundstone’s, “Ultimate Hacking: Hands-On” series. He has taught the art of ethical hacking and countermeasures to thousands of IT professionals from a "who's who" of top companies, financial institutions, and government agencies around the globe. Bryce teaches SANS Security 504, "Hacker Techniques, Exploits and Incident Handling” and SANS Security 401, “Security Essentials Boot Camp” for SANS Institute. Bryce is an active member of several security-related professional organizations, he speaks at a variety of conferences and holds a number of certifications: CISSP, GCIH, GSEC, CEH, CHFI, Security+, CCNA. Bryce is currently Lead Consultant and co-founder of Layered Security, Inc.
top^
Jonathan Ham
Jonathan is an independent consultant who specializes in large-scale enterprise security issues, from policy and procedure, through staffing and training, to scalable prevention, detection, and response technology and techniques. With a keen understanding of ROI and TCO (and an emphasis on process over products), he has helped his clients achieve greater success for over 12 years, advising in both the public and private sectors, from small upstarts to the Fortune 500. He's been commissioned to teach NCIS investigators how to use Snort, performed packet analysis from a facility more than 2000 feet underground, and chartered and trained the CIRT for one of the largest U.S. civilian Federal agencies. He currently holds the CISSP, GSEC, GCIA, and GCIH certifications, and is a member of the GIAC Advisory Board. A former combat medic, Jonathan still spends some of his time practicing a different kind of emergency response, volunteering and teaching for both the National Ski Patrol and the American Red Cross.
top^
David Hoelzer
Since 1985, David has had almost any position that you can imagine in the information technology field, ranging from programmer analyst up to chief information security officer. He has been teaching for SANS since 1999, managing and authoring the majority of the audit related materials for SANS in addition to some of the secure coding courses from SANS-SSI. David currently serves as the Chief Information Officer for Enclave Forensics and the Director of Consulting for Cyber-Defense, a subsidiary of Enclave Forensics. He is a research fellow with the Internet Forensics Lab and an adjunct research associate with the UNLV Center for Cybersecurity Research.
top^
Kevin Johnson
Kevin Johnson is a Senior Security Analyst with Intelguardians. Kevin came to security from a development and system administration background. He has many years of experience performing security services for Fortune 100 companies, and in his spare time contributes to a large number of open source security projects. Kevin founded and leads the development on B.A.S.E. (the Basic Analysis and Security Engine) project. The BASE project is the most popular web interface for the Snort intrusion detection system. Kevin is an instructor for SANS, teaching both the Incident Handling and Hacker Techniques class and the Web Application Security class. He has presented to many organizations, including Infragard, ISACA, ISSA and the University of Florida.
top^
Fred Kerby
Fred is an engineer, manager, and security practitioner whose experience spans several generations of networking. He is the information assurance manager at the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren Division and has vast experience with the political side of security incident handling. His team is one of the recipients of the SANS Security Technology Leadership Award as well as the Government Technology Leadership Award. Fred received the Navy Meritorious Civilian Service Award in recognition of his technical and management leadership in computer and network security. A frequent speaker at SANS, Fred’s presentations reflect his opinions and are not the opinions of the Department of the Navy.
top^
Jason Lam
Jason is a senior security analyst at a major financial institute in Canada. His recent SANS Institute courseware development includes Cutting-Edge Hacking Techniques and Web Application Security Workshop. Jason started his career as a programmer before moving on to ISP network administration where he handled network security incidents, which sparked his interest in infosec work. Jason specializes in network perimeter protection, penetration testing and intrusion detection. He currently holds a B.A. in Computer Science from York University in Toronto, Ontario as well as CISSP, GCIA, GCFW, GCUX, GCWN, GCIH.
top^
Rob Lee
Rob Lee is a Principal Consultant for MANDIANT, a leading provider of information security consulting services and software to Fortune 500 organizations and the U.S. Government. Rob has over 11 years experience in computer forensics, vulnerability discovery, intrusion detection, and incident response. Rob graduated the U.S. Air Force Academy and served in the U.S. Air Force as a founding member of the 609th Information Warfare Squadron, the first U.S. military operational unit focused on Information Operations. Later, he was a member of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations where he conducted computer crime investigations and computer forensics. Prior to joining MANDIANT, he worked on contracts for a variety of government agencies, where he was the technical lead for a vulnerability discovery team, contractor lead for cyber forensics branch, and led a security software development team. Rob also coauthored the bestselling book, Know Your Enemy, 2nd Edition. In addition to working for MANDIANT and the SANS Institute, Rob is currently pursuing his MBA at Georgetown University in Washington D.C.
top^
Michael Murr
Michael has been a forensic analyst with Code-X Technologies for over 5 years, and has conducted numerous investigations and computer forensic examinations, as well as performing specialized research and development. Michael has taught SANS Security 504 (Incident Handling and Computer Hacker Techniques), SANS Security 508 (System Forensics, Investigation, and Response), SANS Security 601 (Reverse Engineering Malware), has led SANS@Home courses and is a member of the GIAC Advisory Board. Currently, Michael is working on an open-source framework for developing digital forensics applications. Michael holds the GCIH, GCFA, and GREM certifications and has a degree in Computer Science from California State University at Channel Islands.
top^
John Myers
John Myers has thirty-plus years of Cryptography, Communications Security (COMSEC), Emission Security (TEMPEST), Computer Security (COMPUSEC), electronic data processing (EDP) security, information security (INFOSEC), and enterprise information assurance (IA) experience.  Experience ranges from technician level to senior technical and managerial positions. Expertise focused on all areas of security certification and accreditation (C&A). Performed C&As on applications, stand-alone systems, local area networks, wide area networks and legacy systems.  Over five years of classroom instruction, instructional systems design, and course development.
top^
Stephen Northcutt
Stephen Northcutt founded the GIAC certification and currently serves as President of the SANS Technology Institute, a post graduate level IT Security College, www.sans.edu. Stephen is author/coauthor of Incident Handling Step-by-Step, Intrusion Signatures and Analysis, Inside Network Perimeter Security 2nd Edition, IT Ethics Handbook, SANS Security Essentials, SANS Security Leadership Essentials and Network Intrusion Detection 3rd edition. He was the original author of the Shadow Intrusion Detection system before accepting the position of Chief for Information Warfare at the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization. Stephen is a graduate of Mary Washington College. Before entering the field of computer security, he worked as a Navy helicopter search and rescue crewman, white water raft guide, chef, martial arts instructor, cartographer, and network designer.
top^
Lawrence Pesce
Larry Pesce is the Manager for Information Services Security at Care New England, a mid-sized healthcare organization in New England. In the last 13 years in the computer industry, Larry has become a jack of all trades; PC repair, Network Engineering, Web Design, Computer and Wireless Security. Larry is also gainfully employed as a Penetration Tester / Ethical Hacker with Defensive Intuition, a Rhode Island based security consulting company. A graduate of Roger Williams University in Computer Information Systems, Larry is currently exploring his options for graduate education. In addition to his industry experience, Larry is also a Security Evangelist for the PaulDotCom Security Weekly podcast at www.pauldotcom.com. Larry is currently completing a work with his PaulDotCom Security Weekly co-host, Paul Asadoorian on hacking the Linksys WRT54G. More of Larry’s writing, guides and rants can be found on his blog at www.haxorthematrix.com.
top^
Hal Pomeranz
Hal is founder and CEO of Deer Run Associates, a systems management and security consulting firm. He has spent more than fifteen years managing systems and networks for some of the largest commercial, government, and academic organizations in the country. He is the Technical Editor for SysAdmin Magazine and was the recipient of the 2001 SAGE Outstanding Achievement award for his teaching and leadership in the field of System Administration. Hal participated in the first SANS conference and designed the SANS Step-by-Step course model. He is a top-rated instructor and author on topics ranging from information security to system and network management to Perl programming.
top^
Mike Poor
Mike is a founder and Senior Security Analyst for the DC firm Intelguardians LLC. In his recent past life he has worked for Sourcefire, as a research engineer, and for the SANS Institute leading their Intrusion Analysis Team. As a consultant, Mike conducts forensic analysis, penetration tests, vulnerability assessments, security audits, and architecture reviews. His primary job focus however is in intrusion detection, response, and mitigation. Mike currently holds both GSEC and GCIA certifications, and is an expert in network engineering and systems, network and web administration. Mike is an author of the international best selling Snort 2.1 book from Syngress, and is a Handler for the Internet Storm Center.
top^
David Rice
David Rice is Director of The Monterey Group a results-oriented consultancy fulfilling client objectives in all matters of information security. David is an internationally recognized information security expert and the author of the forthcoming book, Geekonomics: The Real Cost of Software. David has been awarded for significant contributions as part of his work with the Department of Defense and the National Security Agency. David is a SANS Institute author and senior instructor. He has over 10 years of experience in security and large-scale IT infrastructure.
top^
Richard Salgado
Richard P. Salgado is a Senior Legal Director with Yahoo! Inc., where he focuses on international privacy, security and law enforcement compliance matters. Prior to joining Yahoo!, Mr. Salgado served as Senior Counsel in the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section of the United States Department of Justice. As a federal prosecutor, Mr. Salgado specialized in investigating and prosecuting computer network cases, such as computer hacking, illegal computer wiretaps, denial of service attacks, malicious code and other technology-driven privacy crimes. Mr. Salgado also regularly speaks on the legal and policy implications of searching and seizing computers and electronic evidence, emerging surveillance technologies, digital evidence and related criminal conduct. Mr. Salgado is a lecturer in law at Stanford Law School, where he teaches a Computer Crime seminar; he previously served as an adjunct law professor at Georgetown University Law Center and George Mason Law School, and as a faculty member of the National Judicial College. Mr. Salgado graduated magna cum laude from the University of New Mexico and in 1989 received his J.D. from Yale Law School.
top^
Rohit Sethi
Rohit Sethi, Manager of Professional Services, Security Compass, is a specialist in threat modeling, application security reviews, and building security controls into the software development life cycle (SDLC). He has written articles on topics of application security for Security Focus and the Web Application Security Consortium (WASC). Prior to becoming a SANS instructor, Rohit taught courses on application security to hundreds of developers in fields ranging from financial services, to telecommunications, to healthcare. With a background in software engineering, Rohit emphasizes how to practically build application security controls into existing applications. Rohit holds an Honors Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science with Software Engineering Specialization from the University of Western Ontario. He is also a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), and a Sun certified Java programmer.
top^
Glen Sharlun
Glen started his career in the literal trenches as a leader of Marines and has since transitioned that ethos to the 'trenches' of enterprise network and security operations. Having experience building a policy, consulting and audit practice, leading the global monitoring, response and forensic team, establishing an active audit (Red Team) capability, Glen finished this career as Commanding Officer (CISO), Network Defense, U.S. Marine Corps. Glen is currently the Vice President of Customer Success at ArcSight, focused on delivering the best-practices in people, process and technologies of ArcSight's network management and security operations solutions, to its customers. Glen is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and the Naval Postgraduate School (MS, Information Systems Management) and has attained & instructed numerous certifications from ISC2, SANS and the National Security Agency.
top^
Ed Skoudis
Ed Skoudis is a co-founder and Senior Security Analyst with Intelguardians, a Washington DC based information security consulting firm. Ed teaches SANS Security 504, "Hacker Techniques, Exploits and Incident Handling," and 517, "Cutting Edge Hacking Techniques," on a regular basis. Ed's expertise includes hacker attacks and defenses, the information security industry, and computer privacy issues. He has performed numerous security assessments, provided detailed expert witness services in cases involving major credit card theft, and responded to computer attacks for clients in the financial, high technology, healthcare, and other industries. Ed conducted a demonstration of hacker techniques against financial institutions for the United States Senate and is a frequent speaker on issues associated with hacker tools and defenses. He has published several articles on these topics, as well as the books Counter Hack Reloaded and Malware: Fighting Malicious Code. Ed was also awarded 2004, 2005, and 2006 Microsoft MVP awards for Windows Server Security, and is an alumnus of the Honeynet Project. Previous to Intelguardians, Ed served as a security consultant with International Network Services (INS), Predictive Systems, Global Integrity, SAIC, and Bell Communications Research (Bellcore).
top^
John Strand
John Strand currently teaches the SANS GCIH and CISSP classes. He is currently certified GIAC Gold in the GCIH and GCFW and is a Certified SANS Instructor. He is also a holder of the CISSP certification. He started working computer security with Accenture Consulting in the areas of intrusion detection, incident response, and vulnerability assessment/penetration testing. He then moved on to Northrop Grumman specializing in DCID 6/3 PL3-PL5 (multi-level security solutions), security architectures, and program certification and accreditation. He is currently employed with SANS managing the local mentor program. He also is a consultant with Argotek, Inc. He has a Masters degree from Denver University, and is currently also a professor at Denver University. In his spare time he writes loud rock music and makes various futile attempts at fly-fishing.
top^
James Tarala
James Tarala is a principal consultant with Enclave Hosting, LLC and is based out of Venice, FL. He is a regular speaker and senior instructor with the SANS Institute, as well as a courseware author and editor for many of their auditing and security courses. As a consultant, he has spent the past few years architecting large enterprise IT security and infrastructure architectures, specifically working with many Microsoft based directory services, e-mail, terminal services, and wireless technologies. He has also spent a large amount of time consulting with organizations to assist them in their security management, operational practices, and regulatory compliance issues, and often times performs independent security audits and assists internal audit groups to develop their internal audit programs. James completed his undergraduate studies at Philadelphia Biblical University, his graduate work at the University of Maryland, and holds numerous professional certifications.
top^
Dr. Johannes Ullrich, Ph.D.
As Chief Research Officer for the SANS Institute, Johannes is currently responsible for the SANS Internet Storm Center (ISC) and the GIAC Gold program. He founded DShield.org in 2000, which is now the data collection engine behind the ISC. His work with the ISC has been widely recognized, and in 2004, Network World named him one of the 50 most powerful people in the networking industry. Prior to working for SANS, Johannes worked as a lead support engineer for a web development company and as a research physicist. Johannes holds a Ph.D. in Physics from SUNY Albany and is located in Jacksonville FL.
top^
Benjamin Wright
Ben, recognized the world over as one of the leading lawyers in e-commerce, is the founding author of The Law of Electronic Commerce, a comprehensive book on the legality of electronic transactions and computerized business records. Since 1988, Wright has delivered over 500 speeches on e-commerce, privacy, records management, and computer security and been quoted in publications around the globe, from the Wall Street Journal to the Sydney Morning Herald. He wrote and presented to the Sri Lankan government a report on technology law, which contributed to the adoption of national e-commerce legislation in 2005.
top^
Joshua Wright
Joshua is the author of several papers on wireless security and intrusion analysis, and the co-author of Securing Cisco Routers: Step-by-Step, a book published by the SANS Institute. In a consulting role, he has worked with Fortune 500 companies, federal agencies, and educational institutions addressing issues related to wireless security, vulnerability assessment, and secure network design. He currently serves as the senior security researcher for Aruba Wireless Networks and is an instructor for the SANS Institute.
top^
Lenny Zeltser
Lenny Zeltser leads the New York security consulting team at SAVVIS, a premier provider of IT infrastructure and hosting services. He is also a member of the Board of Directors at SANS Technology Institute, a senior faculty member at SANS, and an incident handler at the Internet Storm Center. Lenny co-authored a number of books, including Inside Network Perimeter Security and Malware: Fighting Malicious Code. He also contributed articles to publications such as the Information Security magazine, and presented to IT executives at conferences and private summits. In addition to holding the CISSP certification, Lenny is one of the few individuals in the world who have earned the highly-regarded GIAC Security Expert (GSE) designation. He has an MBA degree from MIT Sloan and a Computer Science degree from the University of Pennsylvania. More information about Lenny's projects and interests is available at http://www.zeltser.com.
top^