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San Diego, CA - May 9 - 16, 2008
Global Information Assurance Certification

This is the best group of instructors I've ever been exposed to.
-Mark Jeanmougin, 53.com

Faculty for SANS Security West 2008

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.
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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.
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Eric Conrad
Eric's career began in 1991, as a Unix sysadmin for a small oceanographic communications company. He gained experience in a variety of industries, including research, education, power, internet, and has worked with companies such as Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs, Boston University, The Open Group, Navipath, and ManyOne Networks. He currently works in health care and is the Manager IS Security and Network Management, as well as the HIPAA Security Officer for Caritas Christi Health Care, the 2nd-largest healthcare system in New England. A contributing author to SANS HIPAA Security Implementation, Eric holds the GIAC GSEC, GCIA, GCIH and GCFA certifications as well as the CISSP and Cisco CCNA certifications.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Frank Kim
Frank Kim is a co-founder of Think Security Consulting and a Security Consultant at Kaiser Permanente. He has over ten years experience developing applications using Java/Java EE and has designed and developed web applications for large health care, technology, insurance, and consulting companies. Frank currently focuses on integrating security into the software development life cycle and does penetration testing, security assessments, and architecture reviews. Frank holds the CISSP, GCIH, GCFA, GCIA, GSSP-Java, and is a Sun Certified Java Developer and Programmer.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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James Shewmaker
Jim has spent over 15 years in IT, primarily developing appliances for automation and security for broadcast radio, internet, and satellite devices. He is one of a only a few security professionals holding a GIAC Platinum certification: GSE-Malware. Jim previously wrote and audited questions for various GIAC exams and is on the Advisory Board. Jim is a founder and active consultant for Bluenotch which focuses on investigations, penetration testing, and analysis. He is a FreeBSD port maintainer and has contributed to the courseware in various SANS courses including Security Essentials and Reverse Engineering Malware: Advanced Techniques.
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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.
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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.
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