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Dr. Jérôme Dossogne is a SANS Certified Instructor, founder of Torchlight, and cybersecurity advisor and architect with more than 20 years of experience spanning research and development, offensive security, penetration testing, governance, architecture review, incident response, and cyber education. He teaches SEC504: Hacker Tools, Techniques, and Incident Handling and SEC560: Enterprise Penetration Testing, bringing students a rare combination of practitioner depth, research rigor, and leadership experience drawn from both public and private sector environments across Europe and beyond. His ability to bridge strategic security management with hands-on offensive operations helps students understand not only how adversaries operate, but also how organizations can identify weaknesses, validate defenses, and build resilient security programs.
Since 2008, Dr. Jérôme has balanced research, consulting, and teaching throughout Belgium’s cybersecurity ecosystem. He has served as an information security leader within the Belgian Federal Police, as a Military Superior Officer candidate, part of the Cyber Command as well as the Navy, and has contributed to offensive security assessments, penetration testing, security architecture analysis, auditing, and cybersecurity program development across academia, government, and industry. At Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), he has conducted cybersecurity research focused on secure electronic voting systems, cryptographic protocols, and authentication mechanisms. His work in founding and developing university-level cybersecurity programs, including the Belgian Master in Cybersecurity, reflects the same multidisciplinary mindset he brings into the course labs, where students learn to think critically about enterprise attack methodology, operational tradecraft, offensive testing workflows, and defensive strategy.
Aligned with that multidisciplinary mindset, Dr. Jérôme holds a Doctor of Sciences in Information and Cyber Security, several Master's degrees (Master of Science in Computer Science, a Master of Business Administration and a Master in Human Resources Management) as well as other advanced post-master's degrees in Cryptography (DEA), Pedagogy, and Didactics. Adept of continuous improvement to share knowledge from various perspectives with his students, he also obtained 30+ certifications, including many GIAC certifications, spanning offensive operations, incident response, cloud security, and cybersecurity leadership, including the GIAC Exploit Researcher and Advanced Penetration Tester (GXPN), GIAC Penetration Tester (GPEN), GIAC Certified Incident Handler (GCIH), GIAC Cloud Penetration Tester (GCPN), GIAC Cyber Incident Leader (GCIL), GIAC Red Team Professional (GRTP), GIAC Enterprise Vulnerability Assessor Certification (GEVA), GIAC Web Application Penetration Tester (GWAPT) and GIAC Offensive AI Analyst (GOAA).
Beyond the classroom, Dr. Jérôme has contributed academic research on cryptographic voting systems, authentication models, and his doctoral dissertation, Advances in Secure Remote Electronic Voting, along with subsequent peer-reviewed publications, reflect a career-long interest in applying rigorous security engineering principles to real-world problems. He is also a faculty member of the SANS Technology Institute, which has been designated an NSA Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense and is a multi-year winner of the National Cyber League competition.
Students describe Dr. Jérôme as deeply analytical, approachable, and relentlessly curious. His teaching style emphasizes understanding the “why” behind attacker behavior rather than simply memorizing tools or techniques. By week’s end, learners leave better prepared both as defenders (defensive operations) or attackers (offensive operations) to investigate incidents, analyze and design an attacker methodology, communicate technical risk, and respond effectively under pressure. Outside the classroom, Dr. Jérôme continues to support the cybersecurity community through research collaborations, mentoring, curriculum development, organizing community events (tournaments, competitions, cyber ranges, etc.), and the cybersecurity practitioner network he founded through Torchlight. Despite juggling research, consulting, and teaching, he remains passionate about exchanging ideas and helping others grow within the field.
He is brilliant and possesses a wealth of experience and knowledge. His unique approach to explaining technical and complicated topics is to fully simplify them with daily-based examples and create connections with different fields.
Jerome has been great. Always with clear explanation and very helpful, providing assistance where needed, guiding where needed. Highly recommend him as instructor.
Jerome did great the whole week. Superb support trough out the whole CTF, making sure people enjoyed the event. He made sure that everyone could enjoy the CTF by creating an environment where learning and experimenting take precedence over winning.
In a short period of time frame, instructor has covered All topics. He also shared many important points based on his real-world experience. Instructor seems the best among all SANS team, he got tons of knowledge in cybersecurity. I suggest him for any classes. Thanks!
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