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Every SOC analyst knows that moment when alerts cascade, the room goes quiet, and every decision counts. The moment when skill, instinct, and teamwork decide what happens next. David Mashburn helps defenders find focus, teaching how to transform noise into understanding and data into defense.
A SANS Certified Instructor and Chief Information Security Officer at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, David teaches SEC450: SOC Analyst Training – Applied Skills for Cyber Defense Operations, guiding defenders to connect data with purpose. His mission is simple: make security operations more analytical, disciplined, and human by showing how context transforms information into intelligence. For David, every class is a chance to turn curiosity into confidence, helping students realize that great defense isn’t about reacting faster; it’s about thinking like investigators, questioning everything, and trusting the process.
His students learn to see patterns others miss. To investigate with confidence, communicate with precision, and operate with the calm of experience. Those lessons draw from more than two decades in the field. At Embry-Riddle, David leads University-wide initiatives that protect enterprise, academic, and research systems. Earlier in his career, he led incident response teams at Salesforce and built security operations from scratch at the U.S. Pharmacopeia. Those years in high-pressure incident response and enterprise defense directly shape his labs today, where students practice the same methods used by real SOC teams to analyze alerts, investigate incidents, and defend networks.
His technical depth and lifelong commitment to learning anchor his credibility in the classroom. David holds a Master of Science in Computer Science from Johns Hopkins University and a Bachelor of Science from the University of Maryland, College Park. He is the 157th individual worldwide to earn the GIAC Security Expert (GSE) certification and holds multiple GIAC credentials in forensics, defense, and incident response. This depth of experience makes him not only a trusted instructor but also a mentor who bridges the gap between theory and practice for his students. David Mashburn is also a faculty member of the SANS Technology Institute, an NSA Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense and multi-year winner of the National Cyber League competition.
David believes great defenders aren’t born. They’re trained through repetition, curiosity, and community. His classroom reflects all three. One student described his course as “the moment everything clicked, I finally understood what a real SOC analyst does.” Known for his calm, methodical approach, David helps analysts build confidence through structured investigation and real-world application. A frequent speaker at industry events such as the SANS Blue Team Summit, he continues to share practical approaches to detection, forensics, and analysis. Whether guiding a team through an incident or a student through a tough lab, David brings the same focus and patience: helping students discover the discipline behind defense. The calm, the precision, and the teamwork is what turns good analysts into great ones. In every class, he reminds students that they’re not just learning to defend systems. They’re joining a global community of defenders united by one goal: protecting what matters most.
David was amazing. He was very passionate and beyond knowledgeable about the topics and the field. He loves to share and teach which really made the course great.
Excellent instruction! David is very knowledgeable and passionate about the subject matter.
Dave is a top-notch instructor and delivered the material in spectacular fashion. I would absolutely take another course from him.
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