The SANS Institute was established in 1989 as a cooperative research and education organization. Its programs now reach more than 165,000 security professionals around the world. A range of individuals from auditors and network administrators, to chief information security officers are sharing the lessons they learn and are jointly finding solutions to the challenges they face. At the heart of SANS are the many security practitioners in varied global organizations from corporations to universities working together to help the entire information security community.

SANS is the most trusted and by far the largest source for information security training and security certification in the world. It also develops, maintains, and makes available at no cost, the largest collection of research documents about various aspects of information security, and it operates the Internet's early warning system - the Internet Storm Center.

Computer Security Training & Certification

SANS provides intensive, immersion training designed to help you and your staff master the practical steps necessary for defending systems and networks against the most dangerous threats - the ones being actively exploited. The courses are full of important and immediately useful techniques that you can put to work as soon as you return to your offices. They were developed through a consensus process involving hundreds of administrators, security managers, and information security professionals, and address both security fundamentals and awareness, and the in-depth technical aspects of the most crucial areas of IT security.

SANS training can be taken in a classroom setting from SANS-certified instructors, self-paced over the Internet, or in mentored settings in cities around the world. Each year, SANS programs educate more than 12,000 people in the US and internationally. To find the best teachers in each topic in the world, SANS runs a continuous competition for instructors. Last year more than 90 people tried out for the SANS faculty, but only five new people were selected.

SANS also offers a Work Study Program through which, in return for acting as an important extension of SANS' conference staff, facilitators may attend classes at a greatly reduced rate. Facilitators are most definitely expected to pull their weight and the educational rewards for their doing so are substantial.

• Information Security Training - More than 400 multi-day courses in 90 cities around the world
• The GIAC Certification Program - Technical certification for people you trust to protect your systems

Information Security Research

Many of the valuable SANS resources are free to all who ask. They include the very popular Internet Storm Center (the Internet's early warning system), the weekly news digest (NewsBites), the weekly vulnerability digest (@RISK), and more than 1,200 award-winning, original information security research papers.

• SANS Information Security Reading Room - More than 2650 original research papers in 102 important categories of security
• SANS Weekly Bulletins and Alerts - Definitive updates on security news and vulnerabilities
• SANS Security Policy Project - Free Security Policy Templates - Proven in the real world
• Vendor Related Resources - Highlighting the vendors that can help make security more effective
• Information Security Glossary - Words, acronyms, more
• Internet Storm Center - The Internet's Early Warning System
• S.C.O.R.E. - Helping the security community reach agreement on how to secure common software and systems
• CIS Critical Security Controls - A consensus ranking of the security controls that are the most effectiveness in reducing risk from real world attacks.
• Intrusion Detection FAQ - Frequently asked questions and answers about intrusion detection
• SANS Press Room - Our press room is designed to assist the media in coverage of the information assurance industry