SANS Cyber Defense Initiative® 2025

For Ovie Carroll, digital forensics is all about the hunt for evidence in digital places that are hiding critical clues, followed by deep analysis to prove something that the evidence was never intended to prove.

David Hoelzer has fundamentally advanced cybersecurity by pioneering the GIAC Security Expert (GSE) certification, leading AI-driven threat detection initiatives, and developing MAVIS, an open-source ML tool enhancing code review processes.

John redefined modern SOC operations by engineering globally adopted blue team strategies and co-creating the GSOC cert. Through the Blueprint podcast and SANS leadership, he’s unified thousands of defenders around real-world detection tactics.

Frank Kim is the Founder of ThinkSec, a security consulting and CISO advisory firm. He leads the Cybersecurity Leadership and Cloud Security curricula at SANS, as well as authors and instructs multiple SANS courses.