The Black Hat Logo
The Black Hat logo is displayed before a keynote address by Jennifer Granick, director of civil liberties at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society, during the Black Hat USA 2015 cybersecurity conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. Reuters/Steve Marcus

An Aussie has just bagged one of the most prestigious accolades in the world of information technology, and he had to work his fingers to the bone to achieve it. Dr Gideon Creech, a lecturer at the Australian Centre for Cyber Security of the University of New South Wales (UNSW) Canberra campus, has achieved something that only 34 other people in the world have done.

He has been named Cyber Guardian, the most outstanding and most celebrated information security qualification. The exclusive title is awarded by the System Administration, Networking and Security Institute (SANS), a reputable organisation considered as the most trusted and by far the largest global source for information security training and security certification. Around 86,000 certifications have been handed out by SANS to computer specialists, but only 35 of those are Cyber Guardian titles.

To attain the Cyber Guardian status, a person has to go through four separate certification courses on different fields of computer security and successfully pass a two-day test in the US that covers the entire scope of cyber threat and protection.

“The whole process had taken me five years on top of various demanding day jobs, but I am excited and honoured to join this elite group,” said Dr Creech, as quoted by Gizmodo. He will start teaching the first Bitcoin and Fintech Security course available in Australia by March of next year.

Professor Jill Slay, Director of the Australian Centre for Cyber Security, is proud of her colleague.

“We are thrilled to have a world leading instructor with Dr Creech’s level of experience and recognition to take our courses to the next level of academic and practical expertise,” she said.

Creech was a naval officer for 16 years and finished on top as a Principal Warfare Officer. He has gained honours and master’s degrees in both engineering and business administration, as well as a PhD in Computer Science that covered intrusion detection and exploit payload advancements.

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