Thanks to the team at Syngress for making this book possible. I also want to thank the members of the Security Awareness Framework team for allowing me to bounce ideas off of them and taking part in the Q&A contained in the book. Thanks to Justin Brown and Frank Hackett for their support and help in developing ideas. Thanks to the 304Geeks, Rob Dixon, Matt Perry, Benny Karnes, and Rick Hayes for their support. Also, thanks to the guys in my “hacking crew”: pr1me, gl1tch, c0ncelled, spridel, and Hackett. Thanks to the guys and gals at Hackers for Charity: Sam, Glenn, Nathan, Mary, and especially Johnny Long for their friendship and support. Also, thanks to Dave Kennedy for his friendship and being an example of someone who is a true leader and an inspiration. Thanks to Amanda Berlin, Phil Grimes, Jimmy Vo, Tess Schrodinger, and other contributors who took the time to contribute their knowledge and experience in the form of a Q&A that is included in this book.

Thanks to the many conference organizers who have let me talk about this subject at their conferences: Grecs at ShmooCon FireTalks; Adrian Crenshaw, Martin Bos, Dave Kennedy, Erin Kennedy, and Nich Hitchcock at DerbyCon; John Sammons, Jill Macintyre, Terry Fenger, Peggy Brown, and Kelly Griffith at AIDE; Liam Randall, Justin Hall, and the rest of the organizers at BsidesCincy; the organizers of BsidesCleveland; and the organizers of BsidesAsheville. Thanks to my online gang: George V. Hulme, Bill Brenner, Boris Sverdlik, Brian Martin of Digital Trust, KC Yerid, Leonard Isham, and Gal Shpantzer for keeping me entertained while I researched and wrote this book. Thanks to Lee Baird for his encouragement and support.

Thanks to John Sammons who put me in touch with the good folk at Syngress. Thanks to Branden Miller who I copresented my first talk on this subject at BsidesCleveland and DerbyCon. Thanks to my coauthor Valerie Thomas for coming aboard after the book had already started. Thanks to Krista McCallister for her help in double-checking my editing and research.

Thanks to my students who make me feel young and old at the same time; my colleagues, coworkers, and administration at Marshall University; the West Virginia State University Economic Development Center who let me use their coworking space; Moxxee Coffee for letting me use their coffee shop as a writing space; my friend Kara Stevens for going to lunch with me providing breaks from long writing days; and Infected Mushroom and Dual Core who provided the soundtrack for writing the book. A big thanks to Dave Kennedy and Kevin Mitnick for writing the forwards for this book.

Thanks to my family, my mother Betty, my niece Amber, my late sister Kim, my late father Bill, my grandfather Bill Hammonds, and the rest of my family.

An extra thanks to Blair Gardner who put up my long days and nights spent at my computer. Without your love and support, this book would not have been possible.

Bill Gardner

Apart from the efforts of myself, the success of this book depends largely on the encouragement and support of many others. Thank you to my husband Chad and children Andrew and Lily for their patience and support during the many hours glued to my keyboard. I promise to take a break now. A special thanks to my parents who saved the little storybooks that I wrote at the age of 7; hopefully, this is more impressive. I would like to thank Syngress and my coauthor Bill Gardner for making this publication possible. Thanks to Tim Lawton, Jay Llewellyn, and Danielle Dominguez for helping me in the content review and editing process. Thank you to my friend, Kevin Mitnick, for writing the foreword for this book. It's been many years since I first opened The Art of Deception, which inspired my career in information security, and I can't thank you enough for your inspiration and support. I would also like to thank Dave Kennedy for also contributing a foreword to this book and for being an inspiration to all of us in the security industry. Thanks to my friend and mentor Chris Russo, who always helped me find my way.

Valerie Thomas