Marty Edwards Awarded 2019 SANS ICS Lifetime Achievement Award

BETHESDA, Md., March 19, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- SANS Institute, the global leader in cyber security training and education, today announced that Marty Edwards has been named the 2019 recipient of the SANS Industrial Control System (ICS) Lifetime Achievement Award. Edwards' contributions to the field of ICS cyber security have helped raise substantial international awareness and attention to security risks across industries that affect critical infrastructures and their respective control systems.

"Marty's unwavering commitment to his mission to help industries mature and better defend ICS from evolving cyber security threats continues to have an unmistakably positive effect on society," said Mike Assante, director of critical infrastructure and lead for the ICS Curriculum at SANS Institute. "His active involvement in the community has made industrial cyber security a mainstream topic worthy of attention at the highest levels of government and with public and private companies alike." 

Doug Wylie, director of the SANS Industrials & Infrastructure Practice added, "During his time leading ICS-CERT, Marty broke down many communication barriers to foster more open and relevant government information exchange with the private sector.  This and his many other accomplishments have helped to unite industries, companies and security professionals around a common cause."

Edwards currently holds a dual role as Director of Strategic Initiatives at ISA and Managing Director of the Automation Federation (AF) where he continues to work across industry sectors to help raise awareness about cyber risk with the broad industrial automation ecosystem of product and service suppliers, consultants and end-users. Having started his career in the private sector as a field service technician, then further applying his skills as a control systems engineer, he built a solid foundation in ICS design, installation, operation and maintenance before expanding his scope to include industrial cyber security. Edwards' diverse roles throughout his career resulted in unique prior experiences as a vendor, end-user, government contractor and US Federal Government employee, most recently having served as Director of US Department of Homeland Security's ICS-CERT. Edwards holds a diploma of technology in Process Control and Industrial Automation (Magna cum Laude) from the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT), and received its 2015 Distinguished Alumni Award. In 2016, he was also recognized as one of the US Government's top IT professionals by Federal Computer Week (FCW) in their "Federal 100 awards".

Edwards continues to be a highly-visible, frequent public speaker, writer and influencer on the topic of ICS security.  He often provides thoughtful insights and pragmatic expert opinions that notably affect cyber security decisions, standards, and best practices while also helping to guide the public toward meaningful solutions that counteract contemporary risks to industry.

About The SANS ICS Lifetime Achievement Award
The SANS ICS Lifetime Achievement Award recognizes individuals who have contributed exceptional efforts to enhance the security of ICS on an international scale, and who actively strive to bridge the gap between IT and OT. Through education contributions to the community, they've significantly increased the awareness of risks to ICS and fostered the idea that cyber secure ICS implementations and defense in ICS are achievable.

For more information on The SANS ICS Lifetime Achievement Award, please visit: https://ics.sans.org/awards/ics-lifetime-achievement-award   

About SANS Institute
The SANS Institute was established in 1989 as a cooperative research and education organization. SANS is the most trusted and, by far, the largest provider of cyber security training and certification to professionals at governments and commercial institutions world-wide. Renowned SANS instructors teach over 60 different courses at more than 200 live cyber security training events as well as online. GIAC, an affiliate of the SANS Institute, validates a practitioner's qualifications via over 30 hands-on, technical certifications in cyber security. The SANS Technology Institute, a regionally accredited independent subsidiary, offers master's degrees in cyber security. SANS offers a myriad of free resources to the InfoSec community including consensus projects, research reports, and newsletters; it also operates the Internet's early warning system--the Internet Storm Center. At the heart of SANS are the many security practitioners, representing varied global organizations from corporations to universities, working together to help the entire information security community. (https://www.sans.org)

SOURCE SANS Institute