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Terrence Williams

Certified InstructorSecurity Engineer, Investigations at Meta

Specialities

Digital Forensics and Incident Response, Cloud Security

Terrence Williams

About Terrence Williams

Terrence's career began in the U.S. Marine Corps, where he served as a Cyber Network Operator supporting critical defense missions. After his military service, he transitioned to the private sector, holding security engineering roles at Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google, and Meta. At AWS, he focused on securing large-scale cloud environments and leading cyber threat hunting initiatives. At Google, he specialized in detection engineering, cloud incident response, and advanced threat analysis. Today at AWS, Terrence is a Security Engineer II on the Insider Threat Detection & Response team, building detection-as-code pipelines and agentic investigation workflows across AWS.

As a SANS Instructor, Terrence teaches FOR509: Enterprise Cloud Forensics and Incident Response, where his experience at AWS, Google Cloud, and Meta directly shapes hands-on labs covering cloud log acquisition, detection engineering, and multicloud incident response. He is also author of the 2025 SANS Detection Engineering Survey and co-author of the 2023 SANS Incident Response Survey, shaping industry-wide conversations around detection engineering and incident response practices. His teaching is recognized for balancing technical rigor with an approachable style that empowers students to confidently tackle cloud investigations.

Outside of work, Terrence enjoys traveling, exploring new restaurants and bourbon bars, and mentoring aspiring cybersecurity professionals. Students who train with him can expect encouragement, clarity, and real-world strategies that they can immediately apply in their careers.

Qualifications Summary:
  • Credentials and Certifications: GIAC GCFR, GCFE, GASF; AWS Certified Solutions Architect, AWS Certified Security
  • Key Achievements: Security Engineer II, Insider Threat Detection & Response at AWS; previously Security Engineer at Meta and Google; Cyber Network Operator with the U.S. Marine Corps; author of 2025 SANS Detection Engineering Survey and co-author of the 2023 SANS Incident Response Survey
  • Courses: Instructor for SANS FOR509: Enterprise Cloud Forensics and Incident Response
  • Community Contributions: Mentor , whitepaper author , conference speaker, and advocate for practical cloud DFIR and detection engineering

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