Ed Skoudis

Ed Skoudis is the President of the SANS Technology Institute, which has been designated an NSA Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense and whose students are multi-year winners of the National Cyber League competition. Ed is also a SANS Fellow and the Founder of the Counter Hack cybersecurity consultancy and cyber range-building company. Widely recognized for shaping modern penetration testing and incident response training, Ed is the original author of SEC504: Hacker Tools, Techniques, and Incident Handling and SEC560: Enterprise Penetration Testing, and translates decades of frontline breach investigation and adversary emulation into hands-on learning experiences, with over 40,000 students taking his cybersecurity courses over the past 25 years. Ed leads his team in the construction of large-scale cyber ranges, including NetWars, the SANS Holiday Hack Challenge, and other cyber ranges, which directly influence SANS course labs, enabling students to practice real-world attack and defense techniques in safe, high-fidelity environments. Ed’s contribution to the U.S. military personnel’s cybersecurity training was recognized with the Military Cyber Professional Association’s Order of Thor award.