Chris Sanders, Lead Author

Chris Sanders is an information security consultant, author, and researcher originally from Mayfield, Kentucky. That’s thirty miles southwest of a little town called Possum Trot, forty miles southeast of a hole in the wall named Monkey’s Eyebrow, and just north of a bend in the road that really is named Podunk.

Chris is a Senior Security Analyst with InGuardians. He has extensive experience supporting multiple government and military agencies, as well as several Fortune 500 companies. In multiple roles with the US Department of Defense, Chris significantly helped to further the role of the Computer Network Defense Service Provider (CNDSP) model, and helped to create several NSM and intelligence tools currently being used to defend the interests of the nation.

Chris has authored several books and articles, including the international best seller “Practical Packet Analysis” form No Starch Press, currently in its second edition. Chris currently holds several industry certifications, including the SANS GSE and CISSP distinctions.

In 2008, Chris founded the Rural Technology Fund. The RTF is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization designed to provide scholarship opportunities to students from rural areas pursuing careers in computer technology. The organization also promotes technology advocacy in rural areas through various support programs. The RTF has provided thousands of dollars in scholarships and support to rural students.

When Chris isn’t buried knee-deep in packets, he enjoys watching University of Kentucky Wildcat basketball, being a BBQ Pitmaster, amateur drone building, and spending time at the beach. Chris currently resides in Charleston, South Carolina with his wife Ellen.

Chris blogs at http://www.appliednsm.com and http://www.chrissanders.org. He is on Twitter as @chrissanders88.

Jason Smith, Co-Author

Jason Smith is an intrusion detection analyst by day and junkyard engineer by night. Originally from Bowling Green, Kentucky, Jason started his career mining large data sets and performing finite element analysis as a budding physicist. By dumb luck, his love for data mining led him to information security and network security monitoring, where he took up a fascination with data manipulation and automation.

Jason has a long history of assisting state and federal agencies with hardening their defensive perimeters and currently works as a Security Engineer with Mandiant. As part of his development work, he has created several open source projects, many of which have become “best-practice” tools for the DISA CNDSP program.

Jason regularly spends weekends in the garage building anything from arcade cabinets to open wheel racecars. Other hobbies include home automation, firearms, monopoly, playing guitar, and eating. Jason has a profound love of rural America, a passion for driving, and an unrelenting desire to learn. Jason is currently living in Frankfort, Kentucky.

Jason blogs at http://www.appliednsm.com. He is on Twitter as @automayt.

David J. Bianco, Contributing Author

Before coming to work as a Hunt Team Lead at Mandiant, David spent five years helping to build an intelligence-driven detection and response program for a Fortune 5 company. There, he set detection strategies for a network of nearly 600 NSM sensors in over 160 countries and led response efforts for some of the company’s most critical incidents, mainly involving targeted attacks. He stays active in the security community, blogging, speaking, and writing.

You can often find David at home watching Doctor Who, playing one of his four sets of bagpipes, or just goofing around with the kids. He enjoys long walks nearly anywhere except the beach.

David blogs at http://detect-respond.blogspot.com. He is on Twitter as @DavidJBianco.

Liam Randall, Contributing Author

Liam Randall is the Managing Partner with San Francisco based Broala LLC- the Bro Core Teams consulting group. Originally, from Louisville, KY, he worked his way through school as a sysadmin while getting his Bachelors in Computer Science at Xavier University. He first got his start in security writing device drivers and XFS based software for Automated Teller Machines.

Presently he consults on high volume security solutions for the Fortune 50, Research and Education Networks, various branches of the armed service, and other security focused groups. He has spoken at Shmoocon, Derbycon, MIRcon and regularly teaches Bro training classes at security events.

A father and a husband, Liam spends his weekends fermenting wine, working in his garden, restoring gadgets, or making cheese. With a love of the outdoors, he and his wife like competing in triathlons, long distance swimming, and enjoying their community.

Liam blogs at http://liamrandall.com/. He is on Twitter as @Hectaman.