2025 SANS Difference Makers Awards: The Winners and Moments That Defined the Night

Every day of the year, security teams fight the good fight, as Alan Paller would say.

I was honored to cohost this year’s 2025 Difference Makers Awards, an event where the security community formally honored the defenders, builders, leaders, and community catalysts whose work has earned the respect of their peers.

The nominees and winners are solving real world problems and are the heartbeat of our global cybersecurity community.

Winners received a golden key instead of a plaque, a nod to opening doors and creating space for the next wave to get in and do the work.

Here are a few of the standout moments from this year's winners:

Community Champion of the Year, Community Choice: Dr. Reem Faraj Al-Shammari

"I am standing here to remind you that where there is a will, there is always a way. Embrace your identity with pride and thrive."

Community Champion of the Year, Committee Choice: Tracy Z. Maleeff

"Doing community work in the information security world is a labor of love… my goal is to plant trees under whose shade I may never sit. I want to leave the InfoSec community better than when I entered into it."

Innovation of the Year, Community Choice: SecurityReview.ai, Abhay Bhargav and team

"We are not a funded company, making us a minority in cyber security. We have only listened to the one voice that matters, the voice of the customer. This award isn't just a recognition of innovation, it's proof that automation and human expertise can thrive together."

Innovation of the Year, Committee Choice: NOVA, Thomas Roccia

"This small victory is for you."

Rising Star of the Year, Community Choice: Dr. Anmol Agarwal

"I hope that by me standing here on this stage is proof that anyone has a place in cyber security… no matter who you are, where you come from, or what you look like, we need you."

Rising Star of the Year, Committee Choice: Shavvon Cintron

"Don't be afraid to challenge yourself. Be that person in the room if you don't see it. Your vision and mindset matter. And just a reminder, we don't gatekeep here. Let's continue rising together."

Practitioner of the Year – Cyber Defender, Community Choice: Anna Pham

"All of this threat hunting, taking on the bad guys, you don't just do it alone, so I want to say thank you to everyone who has ever answered my questions, probably late at night, who collaborated with me in my research, or shared their own research with the community that made me better."

Practitioner of the Year – Cyber Defender, Committee Choice: Steven Thompson

"Security operations continually reminds us that while technology matters, it's the people who make that decisive difference."

Practitioner of the Year – ICS/OT Defender, Community Choice: Mike Holcomb

“It can't be the OT side of the house and the IT side of the house. It's all the same house we live in and we're trying to protect."

Practitioner of the Year – ICS/OT Defender, Committee Choice: Jeff Shearer

"Our highest aspirations should be to make a difference to somebody, and we should extend that good work into our communities."

Practitioner of the Year - Red Teamer(s) or Offensive Operator, Community Choice: Tata Derek

“This award makes me feel that the work we’ve been putting in, my team and I, has not been in vain. Waking up at night to get new exploits for new vulnerabilities, being called by companies to help them protect their cyberspace, it’s been an amazing roller coaster of emotions.”

Practitioner of the Year - Red Teamer(s) or Offensive Operator, Committee Choice: Cory Wolff

Accepted by Rob T. Lee

Practitioner of the Year - DFIR/Threat Intelligence Forensicator(s), Community Choice: Omkar Nimbalkar

“The challenges we face from Ai enabled threats to expanding attack surfaces demand collaboration, continuous learning and a strong, inclusive committee community, I believe our greatest impact comes not just from systems we secure, but from the people we uplift along the way.”

Practitioner of the Year - DFIR/Threat Intelligence Forensicator(s), Committee Choice: Natacha Bakir

“Without a team, we can't do anything. I'm very happy for this.”

Media Creator of the Year, Community Choice: Dave Bittner (CyberWire Daily)

"I say every day that I have the best job in the world, because every day I get to talk to smart, interesting people about amazing things and then share the things that I learn with the rest of the world."

Media Creator of the Year, Committee Choice: Chris Hughes (Resilient Cyber)

"I never set out to be a content creator. Honestly, I'm just a practitioner who wanted to pick the brains of interesting and amazing people in our community… I'm also thankful for my wife Kathleen and my five kids. Cyber, I will say, is the easier part of my day; it is chaos at home."

CISO of the Year, Community Choice: Allan Alford

"None of us could be doing this without all of us… late nights, incident response, cold calls from the CEO just goes on and on and on, and I couldn't get through this without all y'all."

CISO of the Year, Committee Choice: Kirsten Davies

"Thank you to the practitioners. Thank you to the teams who make the CISOs look so good… And thank you to my detractors. I have many. I know that's a shock. We work harder when we have people who criticize us, and I hope you embrace that criticism, because it becomes the steel for you to work harder and to work smarter."

Cybersecurity Company of the Year, Community Choice: Huntress

“Everyone deserves to be secure… Huntress is really there to try and bridge that gap and lower that cybersecurity poverty line. Many years ago, they were told many, many times that this company was impossible. So it's very cool almost 10 years later to see it have 600 almost 700 employees and over 400,000 unique organizations secured under Huntress.”

Cybersecurity Company of the Year, Committee Choice: XBOW

“I knew the world was about to change. If they could build [an autonomous hacker], so can the adversaries, right? This is something that we needed to make sure that defenders have in their hands, and that's been the mission, ultimately, to fight fire with fire.”

Lifetime Achievement Award: Trudy Maurer, on behalf of her son, Dan Kaminsky

“Daniel was the catalyst for many achievements across the vast internet spectrum, and I believe Dan truly represented the intersection of technology and humanity. Dan recalled in a 2016 interview, ‘The internet was never designed to be secure. The internet was designed to move pictures of cats. We are very good at moving pictures of cats, but we didn’t think you’d be moving trillions of dollars onto this. What are we going to do? And here’s the answer, some of us got to go out and fix it.’ We, the family and friends of Dan, thank you for giving Daniel Kaminsky the SANS Institute Lifetime Achievement Award. Although as his mother, I am proud beyond belief of his outstanding accomplishments, I am even prouder of the great man he became.”

Lifetime Achievement Award: Remarks from Peiter “Mudge” Zatko:

“In an interview [with Dan Kaminsky], he said, ‘I went and I asked this question of a guy named Mudge at a talk, and he told me, never tell anybody your age. Just show who you are through the merits of your work. Make it a meritocracy, take everything else out of the equation and be yourself and bring the world forward.’ And he did, and he continues to. The Lifetime Achievement Award isn’t about what you achieve in your lifetime. That’s part of it. It’s about how many people you influence and bring in and then take it further.”

Hear more about Dan’s impact on the cybersecurity community here: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/leerob_the-lifetime-achievement-award-isnt-about-activity-7408194385802219520-Phv5/

To those who nominated, who voted, who were recognized, and to those who deserve appreciation for the hard work every day, thank you.

Our world is safer because of you.

Rob T. Lee is Chief AI Officer & Chief of Research at the SANS Institute