SANS Difference Makers Awards 2025

Key Takeaways

Stories whispered brave and bold. A toast to those who guard the night, [music] who keep the world's pulse [singing] burning bright. They don't ask for fame. They don't seek the stage. But we're here tonight to turn that page because [music] honor shines where the quiet one stands. So we're raising our glass with a steady hand. Oh, the world keeps spinning on their sacrifice. They fight the storm so we can see the sunrise. Now gather [singing] around, pull up a chair. Let's give the heroes the moment in the air. Tonight we toast the difference [music] makers. The dreamers do quiet shakers. They hold the line. They guard the town. They lift us up when the chips are down. [singing and music] So raise your glass, ignite the room. Their courage cuts right through the gloom. Here to the hearts, no fear can break. >> We toast the difference. >> Welcome to the 2025 difference makers awards celebrating the unsung heroes in cyber security. Now introducing your hosts for the evening, Rob T. Lee, Chris Cochran, and Mona Bush. >> [applause] [screaming] [cheering] >> Y'all can get louder. >> COME ON GUYS. >> All right. Good evening everyone and welcome to the 2025 SANS Differencemaker Awards. Hi, I'm Rob Tly and look around this room. You're surrounded by leaders, defenders, innovators. the heartbeat of our global cyber security community. The room is filled with people who make the world safer every single day and often without the spotlight. And tonight that changes tonight. Tonight the spotlight is yours. >> Yes, it is. Hi guys. >> I see y'all. I see you. I love you too. >> So, my name is Monisha [clears throat] Bush for those of you who do not know me. Sorry about the background and that background too as well. We're going to get it together, folks, and we're going to HAVE A GOOD TIME. IT FEELS SO GOOD TO be back. And every year, I don't know about you guys, but I feel like the year just gets more powerful and more meaningful. And I can tell you right now that this year's nominees are extraordinary. The stories you'll hear tonight will stay with you. But before we begin, let's talk about what makes these awards special. >> And hi, I'm Chris Cochran. Over a decade ago, Alan Porer, the founder of SANS, and John Pescatori started the Differencemakers Awards and it was all about the people in this room fighting the fight in the trenches doing the best they can for cyber security. And that's what Allan called it. He called it fighting the good fight. And that's what these awards are about tonight. Here's what makes the differencemaker awards unique. They belong to the community. Anyone can nominate. Anyone can vote. This recognition is earned purely by the work by the people who are here. The impact that you have on the cyber security community. And in most categories tonight, we'll name two different winners. The community winner is chosen by open voting and that's all of you recognizing peers whose work has earned your respect. Then we have the committee winner. Now, that committee winner is selected by an expert panel who dig deep into each nominees impact, often surfacing people the broader community just might not know yet. But both paths matter. Remember that peer recognition and expert evaluation together. >> When the winners take the stage, they're going to receive a golden key because I mean, let's face it, cyber security has enough locks [laughter] in the community. They'll receive a golden key because the key is symbolic for opening doors, opportunity, creating new spaces for people to enter into cyber security. And that's what we are doing today. Past winners of the difference maker awards come from so many amazing people, nonprofit leaders who help secure hospitals. 70,000 kids were protected. a global volunteer group that mobilized to protect hospitals during the pandemic and um tons of high school kids that were enabled by the cyber cyber patriot program. What they share isn't a title or a budget. It's impact and willingness to go far beyond what they initially contributed. This year's nominees carry that same spirit and you'll see it in their stories tonight. >> So, a few quick notes on how tonight will flow. If your name is called, you will enter from the right side of the stage. Your right side, by the way, and you're going to exit to the left. You'll have one minute for remarks. Short, powerful, but indeed memorable. We want to hear your story. We want to keep the energy moving. And if you have a problem with that, I will help you as you are. [laughter] Now, >> can't make me laugh up here. Before we begin, first we have to thank the presenting sponsor, Palo Alto Networks, Unit 42. [applause] It's beautiful in here and they were a huge part of that. But then also look around the room. These are the people we are celebrating tonight. So give yourselves a round of applause as well. That's all you. [cheering and applause] >> All right, guys. With that, let's get started. You guys ready? >> [cheering and applause] >> Alrighty, please join me and welcome our first presenters, Mr. Dennis Kirby, our SAN CEO, and James Line, SAN's chief of innovation, presenting the community champion of the year. [applause] tomato. >> Welcome. >> Welcome. >> Welcome. Welcome. >> Good evening everybody. Thanks for taking the time to come out and join us this evening for a very special event. Uh chance to get together and to celebrate those who have done so much often without getting the credit that they deserve. Uh congrats to all the nominees uh for these awards. Uh, obviously congrats in advance for those who will win ultimately, but even for those who are nominated and won't win, the fact that you've been recognized by your peers, by the community says an awful lot. I don't think there's any better um form of flattery than to have people you work with, the people in your community uh send in your name, vote for you, advocate for you, means that you're doing something that really is meaningful to them. Uh as Chris said, uh this award ceremony is for those who are out there making a difference, actually doing the hard work. They are people in the trenches, the unsung heroes, the people who are typically not in the spotlight, the people who just do what has to be done uh because it helps the community. Uh Allan started that over a decade ago. Um and we like to continue that. It's consistent with Sam's mission of helping those in the community to empower them, give them the uh the spotlight, the the capabilities to help make this the community uh safer. So, we're really excited to have you here. Uh thankful for that. Thankful for the the nominees, for the community recognizing them. Uh that's what this is all about this evening. With that, I'll turn over to James. We'll talk about the first the first award. So, thank you. >> [applause] >> Hello everybody. I'm James Lion. I'm proud to have made this event have to conduct a health and safety warning on whether one could tether me to this spot and get me to stand in front of a microphone without falling off the stage. Normally a little bit more animated and tend to move around a dash. Uh for those of you who don't know me, I'm a massive geek. That's my contribution to SANS. And uh look, there have been a lot of remarks here already about how amazing this audience is. But if you'll allow me for a second in the setup to this first very important award, I'd like to share with you just this tiny bit of personal perspective. Through 20 years of my career, had the opportunity to work with so many incredible people to use incredible technology to cause pain to the cyber criminals in ways I couldn't have expected. When I look around this room, I see people who are progenitors of entire classes of technology. There are people here where I read their research papers when I was a 14-year-old boy being a little bit naughty. Rumor has it. People who cause changes in cyber policy that have completely shaped our ability to defend and build cyber resilience in the broader world. So this this kind of industry is built quite literally on the shoulders of giants. And when I look around the room here, you don't just look like Olympians. Some versions of titans. Pat had to get some Greek mythology in there, of course. So look, as Dennis said, it's not always about making noise and being in the spotlight. And I think that's perfect for a segue to this first award category here, the community champion. someone who spends their time mentoring, enabling others, scaling their efforts, and magnifying cyber security through making others brilliant in a multitude of ways. So with no further ado, our finalists are >> community champion of the year celebrates an individual who devotes significant time and energy to fostering talent, increasing inclusion and uplifting others in the cyber security community. Jay James Gel Kanda Tracy Z Mleaf Dr. Faraj al- Shamari Joan Noah. >> He doesn't sound as excited as me. I'm going to admit it. Come on. We got to bring some more energy. Get that guy a coffee. [applause] But I will tell you, you can get excited about this. The community choice winner is Dr. Ree Faraj Alshamari. [applause and cheering] >> [cheering] >> shame be So hello everyone you all. Uh usually in such big moments I wear my late father's shirt uh just to get the power I need. Now I I because we're packing in a in a hurry. I forgot my dad's shirt. I have my husband here who is my soulmate. But thank him. Thank you for being here with me. Um please allow me to share just a quick uh message on this uh important peace be upon you all. Uh in this fast moving digital world where we often race like trains in cyber security we sometimes forget why we are running. I begin with these two verses from the holy Quran that ground very much deeply why uh and my life purpose in this life and it resonates and it's a shared mission that I share with Sans for the many who doesn't know that Sans which I always call as my bestie because we share the same mission of serving and making this digital world better and safer for our young children and many generations to come. So Allah Al almighty has said we made you people and tribes that you know each one another. He also commanded and cooperate in the rrete and pity but do not cooperate in sins and aggression. These two words are collective call for action. They remind us that we are here to connect, collaborate and unite for the betterment of humanity. I pray always that may God use me best to serve humanity and making it better and safer place to live in. Standing here tonight receiving this global prestigious from Sans. Thank you so much Sans different makers uh is not just an individual moment. This is not my moment alone. It is a moment of pride for all the women that I am orange represent not only from the Middle East region but from all the amazing women that has inspired me from all over the globe. It is a moment of gratitude of the people in my life who had contributed in building the person I am today leading this mission of serving our humanity and making our world safer and better. This award confirms that the mission is being felt and acknowledged on global fronts like SAS. As Nelson Mandela said, it it is the difference we make in people's life what really determines the significance of our own life. This award carries a message bigger than me. It implies three main facts. The first fact it is a breaking a barrier the barriers for anyone who hesitate or even have that smiley thought of it's too hard to achieve this science award because of their color, ethnicity, religion or what they wear. I am standing here to remind you that where there's a will, there's always a way. Embrace your identity with pride and thrive and the world will appreciate you for who you are and the uniqueness of difference you add and make. Second thing is to to correct the narrative. Many people who sees me usually think that women from the Middle East are either suppressed or rich and naive. I am standing here to tell you we are neither. We are leaders. We are nation builders. We are impactful and influencers where we help each other to uplift as continuation for a journey that has started 1,400 years ago when Islam has introduced an empowered woman. The third one is the testimony that me and Sans are besties because both of us are sharing the same mission of enabling everyone else lifting each others and making sure that we transform people lives and bring happiness and pride to their parents to their friends and enjoy the inner happiness. that's not securing our salaries but actually making the impact that we will know that we have left when we when we leave this planet. So to my dear sense tribe uh James has been with us since 2020 working together with Wix me uh to Robi thank you so much Robi from Dragas he drove one hour just to be with me so thank you so much he's been my mentor for years and I learned a lot from him not only on cyber but how to become a good human being to James Taken who's not might not be here but he was with us on the sans and me journey journey to James line of course and the knights and nightest of sons. You have been my partners in creating women cyber security middle east journey and we have created historical moments in our region because of your belief in our mission. So thank you for that. You walked the talk of empowerment and you helped us turn a regional dream into a global sisterhood. But no one stands alone on the stage. As Maya Angelo once said, "I may come as one, but I stand as 10,000." This awards goes to the women who shaped my soul. My late grandmother who is a bedwin, but with her empathetic leadership and wisdom, she has impacted me to become the leader I am. To my mom, my bestie, who always pushed me uh forward to achieve my dreams. And she told me that the sky is not the limit, that I can always go beyond. To my daughters, to my sisters, and to everyone who have inspired me. To the men in my life who has been my fortress, my late father, my role model, my brothers, my sons, my husband who is my soulmate and anchor. He's been uh very patient and he survived me. So if he survived me, [laughter] he Yes. He he saved that close. So um and to my mentors, male allies and friends who made the impossible possible and made me a be aware that when I stand, I stand with trust because I have men with behind my back looking after me. To every woman and global sisterhood ladies and every passionate woman who uh who's exerting her best to serve struggling the different hats she's putting. I know we're multitasking but it's been very much challenging for us to multitask but we'll continue struggling and serving as because this is what women are very good at to serve and change lives and to every young spirit and rising stars the path is open and the barriers are down. No more excuses you need to get on the road and earn yourself. Let us continue to cooperate in the righteousness because when we listen to each other and when we lift one another, we are and we will always be stronger together. Thank you so much everyone. Thank you. Thank [applause] you. Okay, if I can get this bit right, I won't have screwed anything up, which would be a first. I have the reliability of the ARP protocol. So the committee choice winner is Tracy Z Mleaf [applause] and Hiding Apparently. >> Thank you. It is an honor to be recognized as community champion of the year. I'd first like to congratulate my fellow nominees, Jay, Gael, Ree, and Joan. I'd like to thank them for the great community work they are doing as well. Thank you to my husband Josh and our dog Charlie. Shout out to these groups that mean a lot to me. Women's Society of Cyberjitsu, Black Girls Hack, Security Bides, Blacks and Cyber Security, and the Cyber Safe Foundation. Doing community work in the information security world is a labor of love. It's deeply important to me to make sure that those who want to work in our industry get a fair chance to do so. Whether it's through training or advocacy, my goal is to plant trees under whose shade I may never sit. I want to leave the infosc community better than when I entered into it. And that is my driving force to keep doing what I'm doing with community work worldwide. Thank you. [applause] I told you I'd get something wrong. Thank you again from Dennis and I enjoy the rest of the evening. Thanks again from Sans's leadership. Cheerio. Thank you. [applause] [music] >> Perfect. Perfect. >> All right. Well, I got to say the community and the innovation, the rising stars of everyone that's in here, this is the thing that why every single year, this is the one event I look forward to the most. And I got to tell you, when it comes down to it, when it comes to innovation, Moa, look at the way she looks tonight. Doesn't she look incredible, EVERYONE? [applause] >> ROB. OH, ROB. WELL, if I get a special shout out, can we also clap for how amazing you look as well? >> Let's go. But no, seriously, the innovators, risers, storytellers. I agree. I think that every year we don't just get dressed to look pretty. We are really here for with a purpose and a reason. So yes, >> innovation is extremely special to me. When you end up thinking about what cyber security means, it's not just about the people is about the people and their ideas and their ideas being able to transform them into things that are tangible that give back and are able to protect the world. >> I agree. It's about the execution and that's why this category is so so very important. >> So without further ado, I would like to introduce Max Shuffton, director of mission programs and partnerships at the SANS Institute who's going to be introducing the next award. Next up in [singing] >> I think what I find most exciting about the innovation award going back to something Rob just said is that this is very short for me but that it's not just about ideas that go into a PowerPoint and live there forever but actually ideas have become reality. They become new tools, new techniques, new approaches, software, technology, etc. And they solve real world problems. Um whether it's a security issue, a forensics issue, a cyber defense issue, they make a real difference in solving problems for government, academia, the community, industry, etc. across cyber security ecosystem. And with that, let's go to the nominees for innovation of the year. >> Innovation of the year. using unique approaches to succeed through innovation and risktaking and creating an open-source tool of significant value. Birmuard, Nova, RAD security, securityreview.ai, Abhe Bargav, and team strike ready. >> And the community choice winner is securityreview.ai. [cheering] [applause] >> [music] >> of the old world. From our dreams to the great we [singing] >> um my phone is refusing to unlock too much makeup it says. Uh, thank you so much to the SANS DMA team for this incredible honor. For years, development and security teams have been caught in a tug of war. Uh, this isn't new. Developers now ship code at light speed, or at least AI speed. Uh, but most security teams are still operating at human time. Threat modeling projects in particular are like painting the Golden Gate Bridge. The second you're done, you have to start all over again. The result has always been tension, frustration, and a shared feeling that security was slowing down innovation. At Security Review AI, we set out to change just that. It is not a silver bullet solution. All we did was make security architecture review po possible in just a few minutes instead of months. It uses documentation that teams already have, generates specific findings based on years of training data. These findings are graded by severity, then tags the team and helps them remediate it. That's really it. The goal was simple. Harass developers less and empower security teams more. 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. So to our brilliant team led by the ineitable ABV, our customers, the folks that voted for us and the entire security community, thank you very much. [applause] All right. And for innovation of the year, the committee choice winner is Nova by Thomas Roachchio. [applause] Woohoo. Hey everyone, this is Thomas. I just learned that I won the sense difference maker award in the category innovation of the year for my open source project and Nova which is dedicated to AI and security. This is a huge honor and a great recognition after all that work. I'm super sad to not be there today with you to celebrate but I'm sure we will meet again somewhere else around the world. I want to thanks everyone for voting for me h because uh this small victory is for you. Please enjoy the night and I see you next time. Okay. >> Awesome. [laughter] >> You guys having fun? >> [cheering] >> want want to keep the party going or no? All right. All right. Awesome. Well, I do this thing every year where I don't really plan it, but this particular category, it just first of all, rising star of the year. Do we have any Earth, Wind, and Fire fans out here? I might be I might be telling my age a little bit, but I mean, I got a little bit in me. Anybody know that shining star for us to [singing] see what your life could truly be? >> I think that these rising stars that we celebrate each year are our future. How do you feel about that, Chris? >> Look, first I wish I could sing. You know what? This is this is a special occasion. >> Come on. [clears throat] >> I'm just kidding. I'm not going to do that to y'all. [laughter] I'm not going to do it. Rising Star is so important because I think about the people that are coming into this community, the people that are invigorating it, right? I feel like I'm on the other side of it. I'm starting to coast a little bit, but these folks, these are the folks that are bringing that energy, that fire. I think about my daughters. I have three daughters that are going to enter the world someday. And I hope that they invigorate just like these nominees have this year. >> And I think they will. I mean, this next presenter, I like to call her my friend, but I'd like to also say that she knows a lot about the rising stars out here in the world, particularly uh the women in cyber security. Please help me join to the stage our next presenter, Miss Lynn Dom, the executive director for women in cyber security. All >> [singing] >> right. There is no singing but me by me. [laughter] I don't have the the uh Monisha awesome singing energy in me. Um, it is a great honor to be up here today to present the awardee for one of my favorite categories and that's the rising star. And when we talk about the rising star, we're talking about that person that brings their full self forward into the good work that they do and believe in. And to be nominated in this category alone is so incredibly special. The work that you're doing is being visible and your hard work, your commitment, [clears throat] your dedication, and your passion is not going unrecognized. And so tonight, how lucky are we that we're all together here to celebrate these rising stars? And without further ado, the nominees are rising star of the year, newer practitioners contributing in the industry, blazing a trail that people should be watching. Dr. Anne Mole Agarwal, Shavon Cintron, Pretty Carbanda, Jennifer Langden, Michelle Washington. [applause] >> Let's give it up. So, the community choice winner goes to Dr. Anmal Argal. [cheering and applause] Chaos every was not I don't [music] [clears throat] >> Hi. Uh, thank you so much for this award. This was really unexpected. Um, at first I want to thank SANS, all the award organizers, my mentors, educators, because to be honest, a career is not just a oneperson job. It takes a team. And I wouldn't be here without the support of my colleagues and my team. So, thank you so much. I hope that by me standing here on this stage is proof that anyone has a place in cyber security. So no matter [applause] [cheering] So no matter who you are, where you come from, or what you look like, we need you because the hardest challenges and all of these uh challenges we're trying to solve, they require a diverse thought and that only happens when we have people of all different types in the room. So thank you so much >> [applause] >> Okay, we want to get a photo. [laughter] >> Wait, >> we need the award. >> She won something. [laughter] >> [applause] >> All right. And the committee choice winner is Siobhan Catron. [applause] [cheering] I'm riding face in the wires. >> All right. I wasn't sure how long the music was going to go. [laughter] So, good evening amazing people. I am truly honored to be with you you all today. Who would have thought a Puerto Rican girl from the Bronx would be able to be here to represent cyber security? There's so much I am thankful for. [applause] I am thankful for the nomination of rising star of the year. And as I stand before you, it did not happen overnight. My parents, I am truly grateful for my mom who taught me the importance of learning and succeeding. and my father who taught me that no matter how many times life knocks you down to keep pushing back up. I am thankful to be a representation of Latinas in the industry. Thank you for the communities I have grown with, especially the Women's Society of Cyber Jutsu and the SANS Institute. Before I go, I have to share something with you all. When I first started my career, I never imagined life will take me down this path. I didn't see anyone that looked like me. But I'm glad to see how times are changing. 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. [cheering] [applause] >> [applause] [music] >> I mean, I I know they're probably going to plug the music later, but are you guys listening to the lyrics? >> This was this was this was due to my friend right here who he did the entire score of the DMA. So, we're fancy now. We're shancy. We have a score now, guys. Be sure to download it. I'm sorry. I had to. I app. I'm sorry. I appreciate it. Thank you. This category honestly embodies that fight the good fight that we were talking about earlier. You know, coming from my past in the United States Marine Corps, I've always had this >> I've always had this feeling that I was meant to help protect people, which is why I went from the Marine Corps to cyber security. But I think that this award really embodies that. >> I mean, I wasn't in the military, but I just came back from maternity leave a month ago and >> hey, >> my fourth kid. So, I think I have the mom energy. I have the the protective mom energy. But no, I understand what you're saying. >> Absolutely. That's why we have to bring a very special person up to present the practitioner of the year for Cyber Defender, my good friend Rich Green, owner and operator of Sith 2 Sans faculty and the best dressed award. Here we go. Not for me. Not for me. Um, I've been telling myself all day, this isn't about rich. Those that know me know I live for the camera. I live for the stage. But for this category, this category, no offense to every other category, maybe lifetime achievement. That one's really, really important. But the cyber defense practitioner of the year to me, it's the unsung heroes. When security goes right, it's not in the headlines, right? When things are going well, nobody knows it's happening, but these are the ones that are working all the time, 247. They're on call. They're always doing what they need to. It's not as sexy and glamorous as your offensive operators, your red teamers, digital forensics, incident response, but these are the ones that truly make it happen for you. They're the ones that allow you to sleep a little bit better at night. So with that, the nominees for cyber defense practitioner are >> cyber defender, leading practitioner in the cyber defense field, Roxanne Davis, Amit Elazari, Anna Fam, Roberto Rodriguez, Steven Thompson. [applause] There you go. Come on. Right. So with that, the winner of the community choice award goes to Anna Fam. [applause] >> First of all, I want to say thank you so much. I'm very honored to receive the CN Differencemaker Award under cyber defender category and to be recognized alongside such incredible and talented people in the industry. And you know, all of this threat hunting, taking down 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 to the community. That made me better. To the SANS community, thank you. Thank you for creating a space for all of us defenders to come together and lift each other up where we share our knowledge so we can all become stronger together. And you know, when you stop the threat actor, expose your operations, you make a huge impact. It's protecting people's lives. And with that, I want to say thank you again for the honor. And let's get back to the hunt. Now, [applause] with that, your committee choice winner is Stephen Thompson. >> [applause] >> I never give up. >> Imposter syndrome is real. What am I doing here? This is just crazy to me. Um, thank you. I am truly honored to be stood here with these fine people that have gone before me and they're going to come after me. It's like, what am I doing here? Seriously. [laughter] Um, so, you know, in cyber defense, and I'm with you, this is the most important. Um, recognition is rare, right? Um, success is often measured by uh what does not happen. So incidents prevented um disruptions avoided, resilience maintained. Um so to be recognized in this way, it's deeply meaningful. Um yeah, I'm still starruck. Seriously. Um so I've been fortunate enough to work alongside some exceptional colleagues, peers, um teams throughout my career and um many of the outcomes associated with my work uh are the result of their expertise, collaboration and support throughout the years and uh the recognition is very much a reflection of them. um security operations uh continually reminds us that while technology matters, it's the people who make that um decisive difference. You know, tools can fail, um alerts overwhelm, data can mislead. Uh but skilled defenders apply judgment and calm to protect what matters most. Um and if you see me after, I've got some great stories um to tell you about that. Um I'd also like to thank my wife Rachel and my daughter Minnie. their patience and understanding and support particularly during the long hours trust me um enable me to do this work well uh and I would not be here without them and thank you to SAS for this honor um and the wider cyber defense community seriously I'm truly grateful thank you [applause] All right. So, one of the things that really surprises me that I don't think a lot of people know is that if you notice on the videos back here, the great links people take to put things behind their background. Now, that one was mirrored, so it took me a second to have to reverse engineer what was actually on her shelves in the back, but it said IDA Pro. Yeah. For those who know, you know. Yeah, >> it had zombie outbreak break. It had, you know, Jason's >> face mask and a bunch of other things. I was really surprised by that. See, Chris, we've done a lot of, you know, Zooms together and stuff like that, but, you know, your background keeps on changing. I'm trying to understand like what is what is the one thing that you would probably have in your background if you're display it? See, I I like to keep things in the background that really mean something to me. Whether it's uh a picture of my family or a picture of uh I don't know, a Marvel superhero or something like that just to remind me of my childhood. But I would say that uh it's really important to represent who you are anytime you do any type of content. >> It's funny you mentioned family. My kids, I told them that we're streaming this tonight and they said, "Yeah, I'll totally watch it after Stranger Things 5." So, [laughter] which means they're not watching it right now. They always ask me though, like, you know, what do you do, Dad? And it's funny because even though I work in forensics and I've done a lot of different work, I try to tell them I try to keep the lights on. I mean, it ties into this next C category, doesn't it? A little bit >> big time. I would say this next category is truly what makes the world go around. And we're talking about ICS and OT. And our next presenter who's going to be introducing the practitioner of the year award for ICS OT is going to be Matt Fix, the director of the ICS curriculum here at SANS Institute. Give it up for Matt. [applause] >> All right. So, as a former Army officer, I was prepared to wear my Army West Point tie, but based off the the results of yesterday's football game [laughter] in instead, I'm going to have to talk about a naval officer uh by the name of Mike Asante within within the IC community. You should all know very well. Uh Mike was a visionary leader and he knew he recognized a gap within within this space and he knew that there are people in this world that would take something good like reliable power, clean water, safe transportation and turn that for something bad. And so what he did was he assembled people and built a community to solve this problem. We call those summits. Before we even had an IC curriculum, Mike led that that charge. I'm grateful he built this IC curriculum personally because it pays the bills. But more than what been building this curriculum is he built this global community of ICS defenders who make it their mission every day when they wake up to defend what makes moves and powers the world. And so it's my honor to present this award for these folks, these nominees, what they do every day uh to make our lives safer and what I what I would call the quiet professionals so we can we can sleep safely at night. So with that, here are the nominees. Practitioner of the year, ICS and OT defender. Leading practitioner in the ICS and OT field, Mike Hulcom, Sultanat Masherova, Jeff Sheerer, Rupesh Sherke, Jimmy Wy. [applause] So, the community choice winner is Mike Hulcom. [applause and cheering] Hey everybody. >> They uh I appreciate the uh the award from SANS and uh the community. Um, I wouldn't be here today without Sans being a huge part of my career for 20 plus years. So, special thanks to Micah Asante, rest in peace, Rob Lee, uh, Tim Conway, who missed his plane tonight. Uh, let's say Jeff Shear, we had Jason Christopher, I know he's not here tonight. Jason Deley, Don Weber, uh the list can go on and on for all the folks in in the ICS group. Um special thanks of course to my my family and of course my girlfriend and partner who who is my everything. [laughter] Uh and just a special thanks to you my fellow nominees. uh Sultan I know was not here uh tonight but she is one of very few women in this field that's out there fighting the good fight and educating people on engineered risks in OT and and ICS Jeff I've seen you know teach uh feels like 40 hours a week for SANS and then spend another 40 hours during that week putting a CTF together for students to to take place off and he does that on a regular basis. don't know how he does it. So, and Jimmy I, you know, he's he's one of the most low-key folks you'd ever meet and he's been involved in in some of the greatest incidents that we've had in in the OTICS world and he's he's a big part of of defense. So, uh and Rupesh Rupesh we don't know. So, we were trying we were hoping he was here tonight. So, so hi Rupesh and hopefully we'll catch up. So, but uh you know the the IT and the OT worlds are [snorts] are definitely coming together very very quickly, right? And we see those results and the impacts today. The attacks against OT and ICS environments are only nearly doubling every year, especially for the last four years since the colonial pipeline incident. We need everybody to come together. It can't be the OT side of the house and the IT side of the house. It's all the same house, right, that we live in and we're trying to protect. [applause] So, thank you very much. [applause and cheering] And our committee choice winner is Jeff Shear. [applause and cheering] Never shut down. [music] [singing] Wow. It's it's quite an honor to be up here. Um, so I believe our highest aspirations should be to make a difference to somebody and we should extend that good works into our communities and we have a great community. Um, this award is actually quite special because it captures the spirit of our aspirations of what we should be doing as people, as humans, reaching out to our people, reaching out to our communities. It's actually evidenced in the name of this award, you know, the difference maker award. We're supposed to reach out and be something to someone and reach beyond that to our community. I want to thank the Lord for this moment, for this mission, and for this ministry of sharing and serving those who have picked up the yoke to have the same fight. We're all in this together, right? Um, while there are those who intend to divide us, I can tell you this. From our community, we we remain united and we remain faithful to our mission, to the truth, and to supporting each other. That is the core of who we are. I want to thank my family, my sister, and especially my wife, Carol. My wife Carol has lived a life what I call patient endurance. She has um I've lived a life of intrigue and interest, but it's a life of interruptions. And she was always there. She didn't always understand my choices, but she was always understanding. And for that, she is the real difference maker. >> [applause] >> So, I want to thank Sans and the leadership we mentioned, Alan Per. We've got Dennis and the team over here. They're just amazing. They invested in cyber security professionals, warriors to defend what makes, moves, empowers our world. As you said, as Matt said, um the SANS logo used to have this saying. It was Shenzhi uh pro pashe. That's look no lessons in Latin. But what it means is it means knowledge for peace. I think our lives represent something that is very jealous of other people who aren't in our country, who don't understand the values and don't, you know, share our our current goodwill, if you will. Um, I want to thank the people who helped get me here, my mentors, my peers, and my students because they gave me the knowledge. I am really just a representation of them. and I thank you. I always hope that I gave more than I give um than I got. Two gentlemen that I want to mention is I don't know if he is still here, but Rob Emley of Draos fame. I don't know if Rob is here anymore, but Rob has lifted his voice in this community to a place higher than we could have ever done ourselves. He represents us. He is a good ambass ambassador for the industrial control system cyber security mission. Um he is a good ambassador. And last but not least is Tim Conway. And if you know Tim, you can't help but smile when you when you see him and when you hear his name. Tim is unique. Tim leads from the front. He is actually runs so fast that we just try and stay up with him. But he's such a beacon of light that we see the light and we just follow. He's never asked us for any kind of loyalty. We just always gave it to him because he was such a good leader. So, I thank you for this. This is a great honor. Let's continue the good fight. Thanks. [applause] >> Wow. >> All right. >> Those are some powerful words. I'm just like, okay, how do you top that? I know one thing is for certain. I'm always in awe of what it takes uh, you know, to be a part of an essential enterprise security team, you know, and this category is no different, right? >> Certainly one of I mean, by the way, Jeff and Mike, I big round of applause for what you just said one more time. [applause] It's it's all these practitioners when we end up taking a look at it and I will take a step back and I know we are cyber security community but without the different focus on the different practitions we really would be stuck and one of the hardest ones and I I will admit because you're 100% right this next award category I think is one of the most difficult and underrated skills in the entire I definitely agree. I I wouldn't say anything different besides the words of it takes a village >> and% these people are part of village. So uh next we're going to bring our next presenter to the stage who is here to present practitioner of the year red teamer offensive operator Mr. Rob Joyce. [applause] So, I'm happy to be able to recognize this category because this profession is about people who challenge our assumptions and they they expose what others miss, right? They wield the dark arts for good. They find the things that are happening or going to happen to our networks before the bad people can do them to us, right? And so it takes a diverse set of knowledge, a deep set of experiences, and really a dedication for wielding this in the name of security. So with that, I'd like to bring up the nominees, please. For practitioner, >> redte teamer or offensive operator, leading practitioner in the offensive operations field, Dr. Anmol Agarwal, Eric Soa, Badger, Dr. for Pat Lvery, Tata Derek, Corey Wolf. [applause] >> All right. And the practitioner of the year, red teamer or offense, the community choice winner is Tata Derek. [applause] >> Hi everyone. I'm Derek Tata from Cameroon and it feels good to be here and it feels good to be a winner. So I've just been awarded the red teamer practitioner of the year at the difference makers award organized by the science institute and this award means a lot to me. 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 exploit for new vulnerabilities that have been found being called by companies to help them protect their cyerspace. It's been an amazing roller coaster of emotions. So I really want to thank those who have been standing by me. I want to thank my family. I want to thank my friends. And come on, I mean I'm short of words. So thank you very much Science Institute for recognizing me. It means a lot to me. Thank you. [applause] Definitely not Tata Derek. In fact, [laughter] I'm here to collect this award on his behalf and exactly what he said. Um, he strives a lot for what he does. He loves what he does. He loves to impact knowledge and I'm really proud that he was able to be recognized all the way over here. Um, thank s for giving him this award for recognizing what he does and we're grateful to be here tonight. Thank you. [applause] And next for practitioner of the year, redte teamer in offense, the committee choice winner is Corey Wolf. [applause] So Corey couldn't be here tonight, so I will accept on his behalf. Thank you. [applause] All right. I will tell you, um, we did try and there were visas that we tried to apply for through the embassy. And Derek, I know you're watching right now. Um, I really wish you could have been here to accept that award. uh sometimes is that we know they were trying to come in to accept the award in person but as international and actually it's a testament how important these awards are is it is fully international now >> we have a ton of people that are nominated and these are the only ones that are finalists we had about half the award categories were international uh individuals that really were contributing to the security of the world >> I mean it's so important when you see folks folks from different cultures and different countries banning together to make the world just a little bit safer. >> 100%. This next category, I don't know why I would might like [clears throat] this one. >> I don't know. I wonder why. >> No idea. Um, and by the way, little Kota, there are two Rob Lees running around stands. I'm Rob T. There's Rob M and shout out to us both. Uh, of course, Rob M, who's hopefully watching online. >> Uh, but it does get a little confusing at times. would be very clear clarified on this one. But for the next category, it is one of the most interesting categories because not only are you calling these individuals when bad things happen, but they are the ones who put bad people away. I don't know if you can tell, but with the pocket square, the tie, the way it's tied, the collar, this is the godfather of defer. Everybody give him a hand. Did you know [applause] that? And it was actually Rob Enley who gave me that moniker and I will never forgive him for it at this point ever. Um, all right. To introduce I'm turning around looking at him right now. To introduce the next category, my personal friend and I've known him now for 28 years. 28 years is Obie Carroll, the director of Department of Justice Cyber Crime Lab. [applause] >> Thank you. It's it's such an honor to introduce the practitioner of the year for digital forensics, incident response, and threat intelligence. You know, it's also no uh coincidence that digital forensics, the DF and IR because these are truly the silent operators, the delta force, that when something bad happens, when someone needs to be held accountable, these are the people that are working through the night, they get called in to bring justice to the victims. And they're also the ones that are constantly going home with laptops on their lap with their husbands and wives watching them constantly testing new technology just so that they can underco uncover the truth when they're under the most incredible time constraints, legal uh constraints. So it's my honor to introduce the nominees. Practitioner of the year, DFIR and threat intelligence. Leading practitioner in the digital forensics and incident response field, Dre Aga, Natasha Bakir, Jai Minton, Omar, Nimblecar, Anton Outski. [applause] >> Definitely all winners. And the community choice winner is Omar Nimlar. [music] You hide and go, but I'll find you for smoking [music and singing] room. I'm deep. [applause] Thank you so much uh Sans this is truly an honor and thank you so much Obi and I met Oie just before the event started and I was telling him like I have a three-month old daughter and her name is also Obi what a coincidence um so winning science differencemaker award means a great deal to me uh not just a professional milestone but also a reminder of why many of us chose cyber security in the first place to protect people enable trust and make a real difference. This recognization reflects the incredible teams I have had privilege to work with at Adobe. Brilliant engineers, researchers and the leaders who push boundaries every day. It also belongs to mentors who invested in me early in my career. I'm I'm deeply grateful to my leaders and mentors Travis Christensen, Aaron Shannis, Mike Miller, Martin Van Hurinbrook, Anchel Gupta, Katherine Hart, Disha Agarwal, and a special thank you to Asanmir who gave me a chance to break into cyber security about a decade back. And above all, thank you to my family, especially my mom and dad for all the sacrifices they have made to support my career. My wife snal for her patient, sacrifices and unwavering support through long nights and difficult movements. All of which are foundation behind everything I do. This movement is yours as much as it is mine. Cyber security is not just a solo sport. The challenges we face from AI enabled threats to expanding attack surface 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. I am deeply grateful to SANS for recognizing practitioners who focus on both technical excellence and the community impact. I will continue to do my part building actionable security sharing knowledge and giving back to shape the next generation of defenders. Thank you again. This honor motivates me to keep rising the bar. Thank you so much. [applause] So inspiring. It is my great privilege to announce the committee choice winner and the committee choice winner is Natancha Bakar. [applause] [music] You can hide and go, but I'll find you smoking room slow. >> I'm really sorry, but uh I really didn't think that I will win. So, I didn't prepare [laughter] words. So, I'm really I'm really sorry about that. But I'm really happy. I want to thanks all the community because as everywhere did before me it's a work team without a team we can't do nothing and I'm very happy for this I'm very happy because one of my monty proposed my nomination to this awards this year and uh he I invited him to come with me but he lost his password so I'm very happy I will share the pictures and thanks a lot everyone >> [applause] >> Sometimes those are the best acceptance, right? Like when you don't know you're going to win and you're like, "Hey, that's even extra little thing, huh?" >> Absolutely. I love it. I absolutely love it. This next category is tough. not just because of the competition, but because what it actually takes to deliver something to the world. And we're talking about media creator of the year. So, I've spent a large portion of my life creating things and bringing it out to the world. And uh sometimes my wife uh who's uh at home watching this right now, uh she would look at me and say, "What what is it that enables you to bring something that's out of your brain and actually show it to people?" man. >> And it's because I'm shameless. I I would say that's that is probably the reason why. >> I mean, how else are you going to get things done, right? Like otherwise, you're just writing to-do list and you're always dreaming and you're always wanting. So to actually create, manifest it and see it come into creation and then people actually appreciate it and they like it. >> I mean, can't get no better. >> Yeah. You got to hit a lot of steps. So to present this award, we have somebody who knows a thing or two about creating stuff. That's Zanette Kamal, Mayo Clinic senior cloud security engineer. >> [singing] >> Well, thank you so much. Uh, good evening everyone. You all look absolutely fabulous uh in this room tonight and everyone watching. Chris, it's also my hubby and four kids watching this. Hello to you from Minnesota. Very snowy and cold. Um [laughter] well this category is very special to me because um media creators are bridges between complex cyber topics and the people who need to understand them. And as someone who creates content to protect kids and families online, uh I I know how much uh heart and effort it takes uh to make security approachable and human. And I also know how vulnerable it feels when you put your work out there and uh when you see how powerful it is when it pack when you know it helps someone. Um so tonight uh we honor creators that turn knowledge into impact and I'm truly honored to present uh this year's uh media creator of the award. So with that um the nominees are >> media creator of the year, excellence in media and content that drove thought leadership innovation research or community discussions in cyber security Dave Bitner Cyberwire Daily Chris Glandon Barcode Podcast David Molton threat vector podcast Dr. Nikki Robinson, Mind the Gap, Danny Wolf, Cooking with CISOs podcast, Chris Hughes, Resilient Cyber Podcast. [applause] So with that, the community the community choice winner is Dave Bitner, Cyberwire Daily. [applause and cheering] >> [applause and music] >> Turning fire [cheering] to a front page on the town. They [singing] paint the truth behind the scenes. >> Well, thank you all. Um, for those of you who may not recognize what I look like, um, let me do this. Uh, I'm Dave Bitner and this is my SANS DMA Differencemaker Awards acceptance speech. Pretty good. Uh, thank you all. Thanks to SANS, thanks to everyone out here. Um, 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. Um, I've been doing this for just about 10 years now. I've interviewed over 5,000 people. Uh, some of the people in this room I've had the pleasure of speaking with. Um, I am just the most public-f facing person that is part of an amazing team at the Cyberwire who make it all look easy. uh our producers, our editors, uh the people who keep the doors open by doing ad sales, um our CEO, Peter Kilpy, uh every day, uh it is our privilege to be able to bring the news to you and keep you all informed. So, uh I am honored to receive this and I thank you all. Take care. Thanks. [applause] Congratulations, Dave. And the committee choice winner is Chris Hughes from Resilient Cyber. [applause] [cheering] [applause] behind the scenes. [singing] They show the world how trust behind the firewall. [music] >> Thank you all. Uh I just want to say it feels kind of surreal to be here. I sat in my first SANS class over a decade ago as a student. So, thank you for SANS for putting this event on. Uh, you know, 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. Many of them are here today, Chris, Allan, Mitch, Emit, and several others in the audience here. You know, I've covered everything from uh cyber security in the broad sense to, you know, venture capital, cloud security, uh AI, everything in between. And uh also just want to say thankful to the hundreds of guests and practitioners who's come on the show and you know investors, advisers, founders, industry leaders who've come and hung out with me and shared their expertise and wisdom with not only me but the community. And then last but not least also thankful for my wife Kathleen and my five kids. Uh cyber I will say is the easier part of my day. Uh it's chaos at home. So thank you all. [applause] supposed to be on the stage. >> Yeah, [laughter] you made it. >> I remember my first leadership position after the Marine Corps. I didn't know what the heck I was doing. I was a young kid leading a team of 30 folks. I had no business doing it. Do you remember the first time you were a leader? >> Not in the Marine Corps. >> Oh, yeah. [laughter] >> Oh, geez. Uh, probably have to go back to the Boy Scouts. Um, yeah, they put me in charge of putting up a couple tents. >> Nothing like >> Yeah. [laughter] Hey, >> probably nothing like was in the Marine Corps. >> Someone has to do it. Someone has to do it. This next award uh has a special place in my heart. For those of you that are leaders, being a leader can be very lonely because you are expected to lead your teams into the fight. And then sometimes people are looking to you for answers and sometimes you have to burden yourself with the the trials, the tribulations, and you have to take it on your own. I really got to hand it to the leaders out there because for some odd reason that they think or the other management and uh the board and executives think you're supposed to be wearing a business suit at the same time wearing a hoodie being a being able to hack systems but also to give PowerPoint presentations that you created in the past 10 minutes. This award is especially meaningful to those individuals that somehow bridge that gap between technical capability and the ability to deliver amazing PowerPoint slides. [laughter] >> I'll tell you this, I'm a part of a group called the security tinkerers. A bunch of fellow CISAs. Yeah, a few are here tonight. And uh I tell you during COVID uh we started a call every Friday and we would get together and we would talk. Sometimes we would talk about the challenges and tribulations that we were dealing with. But sometimes we just want to talk about us as individuals and being a CISO is probably one of the most lonely things you can do inside of cyber security. But it is one of the most important and no one in this room might know that better than Silu. He is the Gnostic Chief AI officer and he's presenting CISO of the year. [applause] [singing] >> All right. >> So, growing up, many of us wanted to become a firefighter because we see them as our heroes. They save people and um the things that we care about. Now in cyber security, in the digital world, these CISOs are also our firefighters, but they're oftenimes unsung because there's five alarm fires raging everywhere, but just most of us just don't see it. In fact, sometimes we even scapegoat our CSOS. We call them chief information scapegoat officers. And so they don't get the recognition that they deserve. And so I think it's my honor to be able to recognize some of those folks who are really as uh Chris mentioned leaders of the cyber security field but are oftentimes unsung and actually I was thinking I want to hear the songs because maybe they are actually sung at this point. [snorts] So anyway, uh it's my honor to um and so the nominees for CISO of the year are >> CISO of the year displayed extraordinary leadership, dedication to their team and passion for fostering an inclusive thriving environment. Alan Alford, Andreas Andre, Chris Betts, Kristen Davies, and Marie Zetelmoyer. >> [applause] >> Okay. So, now it's actually particularly hard for me to do this one because all those people are my friends as well. So, okay. And I don't know the winner until I actually look at this because if they talked to if I had talked to them, uh, my poker face will give it away. All right. So, the community choice winner is Alan Alford. >> [applause and cheering] >> in the last sleep to [singing] stand [music] up. >> Holy cow. Um [screaming] 1981 I was offering free red teaming to companies who didn't even know I was there. Um shortly after that that was made illegal and then I went straight and uh here I am today as apparently CES of the year. Um didn't expect that one. Um wow. So none of us could be doing this without all of us. straight up late nights, incident response, cold calls from the CEO, just h goes on and on and on. And I couldn't get through this without all y'all. I couldn't get through this without my security tinkers. Um, I especially want to thank my wife, Ursula. First CISO job offer I got, I was like, "Oh my god, am I qualified for this?" She said, "Yeah, you are." >> And that was 15 years ago. So, here we are today. Couldn't have done it without her. She's put up with all those incident response nights as well. Um, that's it. Thank you very much. [applause] All right. And the committee award goes to Kirsten Davies. >> [applause and music] [cheering] >> Dr. [singing and music] Cars [singing] and they keep showing up. [screaming] Wow. Um, I think this is a key I won't lose. I I think excuse me, my voice is a little bit out. Um, what what a what a surprise. Um, first and foremost, so deodoria. Um, thanks be to God, my rock, my great strength. I wouldn't be where I am today without uh my savior Jesus Christ. Thank you so much to Sans for this. What a shock. Thank you. And I do have to say if you have not listened Okay, I have to take the microphone because this is too too low. I'm not going to sing. I'm not going to sing. Um, if you haven't listened to the songs, please do so. Um, when Chris shared that with me, it literally brought me to tears. And I'm not like super emo. Um, but I felt seen for the first time as a CEO. Um, you know, the the last to leave, the first to stand, the one who carries fire in both their hands. I mean, the lyrics in there are just so strong and so powerful. Um, we do this as a community. Allan, thank you so much for the words that you shared. And he actually is the one I think I think he started Tinker Therapy. I'm not mistaken. My It might be somebody else. The Tinker Tribe. Thank you so much. Thank you to all my friends in this room. Any of y'all could have been up on this stage today. Um, and I'm so grateful to be able to be up here and to thank you all. Thank you to the practitioners. Thank you to the teams who make the CESO look so good. Um, thank you for all of your hard work and all of your ideas and all of your innovation, all of the ways in which you see around corners because we can't do what we do without you doing what you do. Thank you to my detractors. I have many. I know that's a shock. [laughter] um we work harder when we have people who criticize us and I hope that you embrace that criticism because it becomes um a steel for you to work harder and to work smarter. Um and thank you to all you tonight. I just I really appreciate this. Thank you very much. [applause] Wow, her dress was beautiful. >> Congratulations again. You know, Rob, for this next category, sometimes I sit here and I think, do these nominees of this category wake up and just say, hey, I want to be a the top cyber security company of the year. I'm just going to wake up and do that. Well, first of all, [laughter] you see where I'm going with this? First of all, you got to like people enough to work with others and that forms the companies. In all, in all honesty, um I make jokes about this because cyber security community ends up being very insular. A lot of us make uh jokes about the folks that work in the closets. All you have to do is throw a pizza in there. They'll probably turn out some code. That's us. And then somehow someone comes along and says, "You know what we should do? We we should the three of us we should form a company >> and take over the world pretty much right good bad and difference. I totally agree. So I am most definitely excited to bring our next presenter to the stage to present cyber security company of the year uh constand managing director of Aspen Digital. Thank you so much. Come on in. [applause] >> [singing] >> Thank you so much all. I'm so excited to be here because in an era defined by connectivity, the work that we celebrate in this room is more important than ever. Every day, the companies and leaders in this room go out and fight on the front lines, defending our infrastructure and making this global ecosystem trustworthy and safe. The group of companies that we recognize tonight represent the best of the global cyber community. They're not just vendors. They are partners in resilience out there pushing the boundaries of what is possible in terms of defense and security. The categories for this award were high quality products and services, community-mindedness, strong ethical standards, and exemplary leadership. Here are the nominees. Cyber Security Company of the Year. A community-minded company that offers high quality products and services, demonstrates strong ethical standards, and exhibits exemplary leadership in cyber security. Dark Trace, Huntress, Pantara, Simplicity, Expo. [applause] And the community choice winner is Huntress. [applause] [cheering] [singing] Hello everybody. [clears throat] >> You know, first off, thank you to SANS for putting on this amazing event. Greatly appreciate it. Uh when I joined Huntress four years ago, what really drove me to Huntress was how involved they were in the community. Uh if you haven't heard of Huntress before, they were really a company that was founded on this idea that everyone deserves to be secure. And we've done an amazing job making amazing strides bringing cyber security to many many corporations across the globe. But whether it's a fivep person company or a Fortune 500 company, Huntress is really there to try and bridge that gap and lower that cyber security poverty line. So I'd love to give a thank you to Chris or Kyle Hansovven, Chris Bisnet, and John Frell who founded Huntress many many years ago. They were told many many times that this company was impossible. So it's very cool uh almost 10 years later to see it have 600 almost 700 employees and over 400,000 unique organizations secured under huntress which is really great to see. Uh thank you to our sock who is actively stopping ransomware right now. Our product organization who is building amazing technology and making it accessible to so many more organizations. Um just thank you so much. just such an honor, an event about community to have a a huntress really five or four years after I joined um to receive this award. So focused on community really appreciate it. Thank you so much everybody. [applause] And the committee choice winner is Expo. [applause] We are the [music] stand. [singing] >> Wow, what an amazing group of people. Just listening to each one of the testimonies of what you've been doing in the community was blown away. I'm I'm accepting this award on behalf of my company, not not myself personal personally. Um uh but but it's it's a great honor. Um for those that don't know Expo, uh we were founded by Ugga Deore. Ugga was ultimately the the founder of Seml. He he he was a professor at Oxford for many years and then um GitHub and Expo acquired them to create GitHub advanced security code for any of you that might be familiar. And then from there he became the VP of of GitHub next and found a GitHub co-pilot. And then um um after that um many of the the founding team of the engineers ultimately followed him um to Expo to create an autonomous hacker. Um I think it was around June time frame that we launched expo on um hacker one and within the few weeks we climbed number one in North America and then ultimately number one in the world. I was leading go to market at GitHub uh for GitHub advanced security and when I saw that I said the world's about to change. if they could build that, so can the adversaries, right? And this is something that we need to make sure that defenders have in their hands. And that's been the um the mission of what we're doing at Expo ultimately to fight fire with fire. Um and very honored by this award. So, thank you very much. [applause] [cheering] No, we got to come up too. It's the last award. [snorts] This award is uh probably the most meaningful award that we've give out every single year. The way this works is we take input from the community and heavily from the committee and we put together a list of finalists that both groups feel are the lifetime achievement awards. and it's counterproductive, but you would think that people would strive for this award. But honestly, it's the folks that really focus on the work and do the best they absolutely can that end up here tonight. >> For sure. And you know, here at SANS, we're all about people, right? It's about mission, but we're always about people. And I think that the nominees in this category obviously display that they are for the people. And to present tonight's award who's not only a nominee but is one of the finalists in this award category is Mudge. [applause] >> Hello everybody. Um, I'm going to let the AV gods know that this will be slightly different so they can follow along. Uh, it is my honor and my privilege to uh be up here in front of all of you to not only announce the finalists but also to um share a little story uh before we bestow uh the gift. Obviously, you could tell I am not the finalist, but that is also one of the reasons why I'm so excited and happy to be up here. Uh, so without that, um, let's hear the nominees. >> Lifetime Achievement Award transcends categories and has made substantial contributions to cyber security over many years. HD Moore, Melissa Hathaway, Peter Mudge, Zatco, Dan Kaminsky, Colleen Culage. [applause] So before uh I announce the winner and ask somebody to come up on stage, I'm going to tell you actually I'm going to announce the winner, tell a little story, and then I ask the person to come up on stage to receive it. The winner of the Lifetime Achievement Award is Dan Kaminsky. [applause] I told myself I would get choked up and I knew I would. But uh the story um is it was 1993 uh early Defcon. um was when it was quite technical and I had just finished giving a talk and a very young man came up and queued up at the microphone in the Q&A session and he started off by saying um hi my name's Dan and uh I am and he started telling his age uh which was in the teens young teens and I cut him off right there and I said never tell anybody your age. Don't tell them your race. Don't tell them your gender. Don't tell them your ethnicity. Let them hear your question or hear what you have to say and judge it on the merit of that alone. Don't let them bring their own biases in beforehand. If you're too young in their eyes, they'll say, "Ah, the person doesn't know what they're saying." And they won't even pay attention to what it was that you said. If you're a gray beard, which I am now, they'll say, "Ah, past his time. He doesn't know what's going on or she doesn't know what's going on." It doesn't matter. And I can already tell that the question, which you said, "Yeah, this is probably a dumb question." your question's not going to be dumb because you're up there asking it, which means that either I didn't communicate something well or it's something that other people will benefit from hearing or learning the answer from uh when it's said. So, fast forward about 15 years and the DNS cache uh attack comes out and Dan and I had become friends. Uh I didn't even know that uh that was Dan who was the kid who had asked that question who had queued up and he's talking uh to the reporter and I'm reading the interview and in the interview I just kind of stopped in my tracks because the interviewer said why did you decide to go into computer security and he told that story. And 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 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 I was stunned and he did and he continues to. And 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 who can then take it further. So Trudy, if you wouldn't mind coming up here, we're going to play a little video and Trudy, his mother, is going to accept the ward on Dan's behalf. [applause] >> Why should we attack this? My thing is I have no problem using thoroughly ugly hacks in the name of defense. >> Who am I? Some guy. I do code. I called my close friends and I told them I was getting married in Singapore. He jumped on an airplane and flew halfway around the world to the heat and humidity in Singapore. This is my mly crew of infosc warriors that are going to protect me, keep me safe from the bridesmaids. You're in my wedding photos forever, for eternity. >> This infectious enthusiasm for cyber security was really one of the the driving factors for me. I had the honor of being the inaugural [music] Dan Kaminsky fellow in 2022, automating the fixing of security vulnerabilities at scale across open source thanks to the Dan Kaminsky Fellowship. My talks are stories and that's the one thing that I advise everyone else giving a speech. You're telling a story to your friends about some cool stuff. My career started because I started speaking out here in Vegas and started coming out to Defcon and showing off these toys. I'll be honest, a lot of my talks have had nothing to do with security. Just like, "Yo, look what I can make that thing do." There's an advantage to knowing how things actually work. We can fix things nobody else cares to if we can bother to care to. Yeah, I just took a lot of crap over the last month, over the last couple months, whatever. I got 120 million broadband customers that are fixed. I'd do it again. I'd do it twice. >> [music] >> You and I know what people should be doing, but my god, there's a lot of crap out there. If you actually look, a lot of people do not realize the degree to which people have been ignoring security research and security guidance. >> Like, call up, Paul. Like, >> dude, here's the exploit. It works really quickly and it works everywhere. >> He just sort of listens and then it clicks in his head what exactly I'm doing. And she goes, >> "Okay, need you to never tell anyone about this on an unencrypted phone line again." >> I'm like, >> "Are you serious?" >> That's what I'm asking. You >> mentioned Paul Vixie is a badass. So, we have this giant secret meeting at Microsoft headquarters. They get up on stage in front of all these guys and I'm like, "Look at this. Watch this thing blows up in front of everybody." I think the global economy has moved into our world and we're just sitting here like, man, we built this in 1983. We didn't think you'd be moving trillions of dollars on this. What are we going to do? And here's the answer. Some of us got to go out and fix it. It's not about what how the network works when things are going right. It's about how the network works when things are going wrong. And serviceability is ultimately the measure of software flaw survivability. And I worry I worry about developers ability to innovate without their creativity being smothered by security concerns. a brilliant hacker. His uh work with the community and the things he produced are unparalleled. His enthusiasm was always that of somebody who just won the lottery. Second person I called when I found out I was going to have a daughter. He was a magnificent man, momentous and his impact and his computational theory was phenomenal. We chat a couple times a week and continues to impact technology for generations to come. >> We're hackers, but the good, the kind that sets out to fix the biggest problems that we can find. Never expected that we started out company, but we'll do whatever it takes to fix the internet. >> He would go and he would appreciate, people would remember people. He would say, "This guy right here back then was about botnets. You know, e-commerce works today because of him." And I'm like, "Okay, that's an overstatement." I was giving this talk and I asked does anybody not know X something around DNS and he just raised it and I said really then you don't know it but he's the DNS guy said yes and I explained what it was and he came to me and said later Gaddy somebody intell I took it upon myself so just tried to maybe answer the question instead of asking it and I was like oh wow >> he made a great contribution with his Dan cam for the vision impaired and that inspired people that you could use your kind of superpowers for good in different ways. Countless people have read the same books about vision that Dan did, learned the same facts about the response curve of cone photo receptors, but only Dan thought I could fix colorlindness in software. Dan was part of a small group of us that aren't afraid to tackle hard problems. He became absolutely disgusted with the cost and availability of MRI technology. So, he decided to make one that anybody could have for just a couple thousand at home. Everything is set up to make you think that you need permission to be awesome. And I'm going to tell you right now, you don't need anybody's permission to be awesome. You can just go do stuff. The resources are there. The tools are there. The means are there. And you live in a world right now that is not actually based on people getting permission to make things better, but is based on the fact that people did it. It was better and they made fabulously wonderful businesses out of it. >> During my first security course in the army, I watched a video of Dan Kaminsky reflecting on his wild hacking days. His genius for blending social engineering with technical and business insights pulled me straight into this field. I was there when Dan killed Clippy. He made Clippy sing in front of Microsoft executives at one of the very first Blue Hats. Clippy wasn't supposed to make noise at all. He'd be doing the same thing to Clippy's descendants, these AI tools. He'd be bringing that same deep technical understanding, the accessible demos, a sense of humor and joy. Defense minus offense is just compliance. It's like a list of check boxes. Everyone looks busy, but the house still burns down. For every phone that we would really like to get into, there's tens of thousands of devices that we really need to protect. And that work, that protection has been brought to us by what I promise you is a small team at Apple. These guys shouldn't be getting a court order. These guys shouldn't be getting medals. We have got to protect the people who are putting out the fires. >> Thank you for recognizing Dan. Lifetime achievement in the SANS Difference Maker Awards. >> I'm going to make this so you can build beautiful things that don't suck. Security is going to give you a hand. That's what I got. >> Don't be afraid to take the knowledge you have and make it accessible to vastly more people. There is no saving the internet. There is postponing the inevitable for a little longer. And every one of you as a security person in this field, get out there, get people to fix their stuff. It's the only thing we can possibly do to help. And that's what I've got. [applause] [applause] Hello, I am Trudy Mo, the mother of Daniel M. Kaminski, >> recipient of the SANS Institute Lifetime Achievement Award. Daniel unfortunately died in April of 2021. So, I am honored to accept this award on his behalf. Daniel was the catalyst for many achievements across the vast internet spectrum and I believe Dan truly represented the intersection of technology and humanity. He was a respected practitioner of penetration testing the business of exploiting the security of computer systems at the request of owners who want to harden their system from attack. was a profession that I, his mother, saw Daniel first develop a knack for at four years old after his father gifted him a computer from Radio Shack. By age five, Dan had taught himself to code. his childhood parallel, [clears throat] the 1983 movie War Games, in which a young child played by Matthew Brick unwittingly accesses a US military supercomput. When Daniel was 11, I received an angry phone call from someone who identified himself [laughter] as a network administrator for the Western United States. The administrator said someone at our residence was monkeying around in territories where he shouldn't be monkeying around. Without my knowledge, young Daniel had been examining military websites. He was 11. The guy didn't believe it, but I gave birth to him. I knew how old he was. The administrator vowed to punish him by cutting off our family internet access. I warned the administrator that if he made good on his threat, I would take out an advertisement in the San Francisco Chronicle denouncing the Pentagon's lack of security. I will take out an ad that says your security is so crappy even an 11year-old can break it. [cheering] [applause] We settled on a compromise of punishment three days without internet. Nearly two decades after he lost his access to the internet, Daniel wound up saving it. What Dan discovered in 2008 was a problem with the internet's basic address system known as the domain name system or DNS. A dynamic phone book that converts humanfriendly web addresses like the New York Times.com and google.com into their machinefriendly numeric counterparts. He discovered a way that thieves or spies could manipulate DNS traffic so that a person typing the website from a bank would instead be redirected to an impostor site that could steal the user's account number and password. Daniel alerted the Department of Homeland Security, executives at Microsoft and Cisco, and other Internet Security experts to the problem and helped spearhead a patch. Dan's next call was to Paul Vixie, a longtime steward of the internet's DNS system. The unflapable Mr. Vixie recall that his panic grew as he listened to Dan's explanation. "I realized we were looking down the gun barrel of history," Paul recalled. "It meant everything in the digital universe was going to have to get patched." "Mr. Vixie asked Dan if he had a fix in mind." Dan said, "We're going to get all the makers of DNS software to coordinate a fix, implement it at the same time, and keep it a secret until I present my findings at Black Hat, an annual hacking conference in Las Vegas." Most of you are familiar with Daniel. Then the director of penetration testing at IO active, a security firm based in Seattle, had developed a close working relationship with Microsoft. He and Paul persuaded Microsoft to host a secret convention of the world seminar cyber security experts. In Paul's words, [snorts] I remember calling people and telling them, "I'm not at liberty to tell you what it is, but there's this thing and you will need to get on a plane and meet us in this room at Microsoft on such and such a date." Over the course of several days, they cobbled together a solution in stealth, a fix that Mr. Vixie compared to dark But given the threat of internet disaster, Bixie recalled it as being the best dog we could have ever come up with. By the time Daniel took the stage at Blackhot, Black Hat that August, the web had been spared. Daniel, who typically dawned a t-shirt, shorts, and flipflops, appeared on stage in a suit I had bought for him. I had also requested that he wear dress shoes. He sort of complied, twirling onto the stage in brightly lit roller skates. When his talk was complete, Dan was approached by a stranger in the crowd. It was the administrator who had kicked Daniel off the internet years earlier. Now, he wanted to thank Dan and to ask for an introduction to the meanest mother he ever met, me. [applause] When a reporter asked Dan why he did not exploit DNS law to become wealthy, he said that doing so would have been morally wrong and that he did not want his mom me to have to visit him in prison. Jeff Moss, the founder of Defcon, as you saw, and Black Hat hacking conferences, suggested that Daniel be inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame. That goal was achieved in December of 2021. When an internet associate struggled with color blindness, Daniel developed the Dan Cam, a mobile app that uses camera [clears throat] to interpret colors otherwise unseen by the colorblind. When his grandmother at 85 who lived to be 97 experienced hearing loss, he refocused his efforts on hearing aid technology. The internet was never designed to be secure. Dan recalled in a 2016 interview, "The internet was designed to move pictures of cats. We are very good at moving pictures of cats, but he added, "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. >> [applause] >> Thank you. Thank you for giving him this song. [applause] [applause] >> [clears throat] [snorts] >> One moment, Judy. I got to hug you real quick, Judy. >> Yes, >> that was amazing. >> You did so good. >> Thank you. Thank you for setting this up. No more. Nobody appreciate it. Okay. Sorry. All right, everyone. Um, wow. This evening is about all the nominees, about everyone that submitted a name and the stories. We had books written about many of you that are in here that are encapsulated by a single sentence in the nominee and finalist guide. One of the things that I have the privilege of is reviewing all of these and reading them. All the folks out there that didn't make the finalists are deserving. Everyone in here who is a finalist is deserving. And those of you in here once tonight are deserving. And we appreciate all the efforts that you've gone through. And on behalf of the Sans Institute, one more round of applause for everyone that's been hard. [applause] [applause] Honestly, such a incredible night. One of my favorite nights uh of the year every single year. Uh we also have to give a big round of applause to unit 42 from Palo Alto Networks for enabling all this to happen. [applause] >> Of course. Of course. I would be remiss if I did not uh thank the lady of the room who made all of this happen. As a matter of fact, she saved me some from something literally today. Um, so I just want to give a big shout out to my friend Jessica Hill. Jess, [applause] she is in the back. We love you. And Jessica keeps a tight-knit team in the back. And if you notice on her left and right, we on the right hand, well, my right on the right hand side over here. Big round of applause for the audiovisis team who makes us or tries to make us look good up here. [applause] And on the left hand side, we have the entire marketing group out here who's also been trying to make us look good on the stream. Thanks. Thanks everyone. The pictures, social media, and everything else. Thanks to the SNS marketing team. [applause] I'm going to end tonight saying that the celebration does not end here. And one of the things I would like to challenge everyone in here to do, you look around the room, you're sitting at different tables. You only got to meet a small fraction of those who made a difference in here. We invite everyone to the after reception party that I believe is upstairs. Jess will probably guide you. I got this wrong. She's going to come up here and murder me right now. But please stay after. Get to know everyone in here because this is the group when you talk about the community out there. When bad things happen, this is the group that you're going to turn to. There are folks in here that I've known. Where's Obie again? There's Obie. That 28 years I've known this man. And at the same time, the amount of cases that we've worked and the times that we've communicated together and also worked at the SANS Institute. But between Obi and I, we have so many of you that we've gotten to know that actually help solve the really hard problems. So, with my final words, and I'm going to pass it to my co-host up here. Please hang out. Get to know two people you don't know. Pop quiz. How many people do you not do you need to know at this point? Two more. All right, Chris. >> Everyone, keep making a difference out there. >> I don't have much. I love to meet anyone that I have not met yet. We'll see you guys next year at next year's 2026 Makers where we have more and more people out there making a difference. So, thank you guys folks for coming out. I look forward to seeing you guys upstairs. >> Good night, everyone. [applause] >> Hey, come.