SANS Difference Makers Awards 2011

The people and organizations who made a difference in security in 2011.

Australian Defence Signals Directorate
For identifying and Implementing the "Four Key Controls" that stop the spread of targeted cyber intrusions.

Bureau of Diplomatic Security
For innovation and excellence in creating effective teams, techniques and counterintelligence to identify attackers quickly and eliminate malicious code installed on State Department computers.

U.S. Central Command J-6; U.S. Air Force, U.S. Army, and Department of Defense, Chief Information Officers and their teams; and the Department of Defense Joint Consensus Working Group
For baking security into the configurations of Department of Defense Systems deployed in war zones: radically improving security while making implementation easy and lowering costs.

Cisco wins National Cybersecurity Innovation Award in Meeting the Need for Critical Cybersecurity Skills
For the Security Knowledge Empowerment (SKE) program that develops key security knowledge of information technology architects, enabling them to become "security sensors."

Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Attorney General's Office
For the Coreflood botnet Takedown - creative and proactive steps making the Internet more secure.

U.S. DHS Science and Technology Directorate, Cyber Security Division, Cyber Security Research & Development Center
For making federal cybersecurity research and development expendatures that have real value in improving security: Domain Name System Security (DNSSEC) national deployment - increased security that results in substantial cyber risk reduction.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security National Cyber Security Division and Idaho National Laboratory
For securing control systems through innovative training programs.

Los Alamos National Laboratory Wins National Cybersecurity Innovation Award for Leap Forward in Cloud Security
For "Infrastructure on Demand" - award-winning secure cloud initiatives in government.

NASA Ames Research Center
For Nebula - an open-source cloud computing platform enabling the flow of information between NASA and the public.

National Security Agency Information Assurance Directorate and Trusted Computing Group
For resurrecting the promise of application white listing and network access control - proving it can be done cost effectively.

U.S. Air Force
For deploying a Cyber Range as an integral element of its training courses enables the Air Force to improve mastery of tactics, techniques, and procedures by the next generation of cyber warriors.

U.S. Department of State Office of the CIO
For achieving drastic risk reductions and rapid threat mitigation through continuous security monitoring and mitigation.

Zynga Inc.
For improvements in the security of cloud computing and virtual systems.

U.S. Department of Defense - DIB Cyber-Pilot, supported by the Department of Homeland Security DoD's Cyber Crime Center (DC3) and the National Security Agency
For piloting an active defense in a public-private partnership and demonstrating that sensitive data can be shared safely and with substantial risk reduction impact - The Defense Industrial Base (DIB) Cyber Pilot program.