SANS Instructors

James Tarala, managing partner at Cyverity, co-created the CIS Controls and Cybersecurity Standards Scorecard, transforming cybersecurity governance and empowering global organizations to operationalize risk into actionable defense strategies.

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Will has revolutionized cyber threat intelligence by co-founding Curated Intelligence and exposing ransomware operations like Black Basta. His expertise in infiltrating dark web communities has advanced how we dismantle cybercriminal networks.

SANS Certified Instructor Candidate Sean Thomas has worked in higher education for 25 years, including as a Senior Information Security Analyst for the past decade with Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, where he was part of the team that created the university’s cybersecurity program.

Eric Thompson is the Director of Cybersecurity Operations and Incident Response at AECOM and a SANS Associate Instructor for LDR512: Security Leadership Essentials for Managers.

Ryan is a Senior Cloud Security Researcher at CrowdStrike. His role involves researching and emulating adversary activity across AWS and Azure, building proof-of-concept solutions for threat hunting.

Kai Thomsen is the Director of Global Incident Response Services at Dragos, Inc. and a SANS Certified Instructor for the ICS515 course. Kai holds the GIAC Response and Industrial Defense (GRID) certification.

As a Special Agent with the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, Chad served on the national computer intrusion team and helped expand counter-espionage techniques. At SANS, Chad is a senior instructor and co-author for FOR500 and FOR508.

After serving as the senior cyber tactics development lead in the U.S. Air Force, Matthew founded Open Security in 2014, which performs full-spectrum vulnerability risk assessments, and has been a SANS instructor since 2016.

Tony Turner has reshaped critical infrastructure security by advancing SBOM maturity and Cyber-Informed Engineering, while pioneering adversarial AI simulations and digital twin technologies as VP at Frenos.

Kevin Tyers is a certified SANS instructor, the Senior Manager of Platform Fundamentals at GitHub, and runs the small software company KTWS.

Dr. Johannes Ullrich is the Dean of Research for SANS Technology Institute, a SANS Faculty Fellow, and founder of the Internet Storm Center (DShield.org) which provides a free analysis and warning service to thousands of Internet users and organizations.