Last updated: Thu Oct 6 17:51:30 PDT 2005

About me

I'm a Senior Security Engineer and researcher at the Information School (iSchool) at the University of Washington. I started working at the UW in 1990. From 1996 until 2003, I was the senior computer security incident response analyst and system/network security consultant for the UW. My background is in computer programming and UNIX system administration on several platforms.

Many years ago, I also supported World Wide Web services including the initial prototype and subsequent support of UW's original (now retired) Weber web service (and proud father of the Weber Guy).

I taught the R870: Unix System Administration - A Survival Course Education & Training course for about 10 years, and in Autumn 2003 co-taught the initial offering of INFO 498AA special topics course on Computer Security Incident Response. I continue to guest lecture for this and other Computer Security and Forensics courses.

I am also an active member and officer of the Honeynet Project and member of Seattle's "Agora" computer security group.


The following bios are usable for conference organizers, etc.

Short form bio


Dave Dittrich is a Senior Security Engineer and Researcher for
the UW Center for Information Assurance and Cybersecurity and
the Information School at the
University of Washington.  He is also a member of the Honeynet Project
and member of Seattle's "Agora" security group.

Dave is most widely known for his research into Distributed Denial of
Service (DDoS) attack tools and host & network forensics. He has
presented talks and courses at dozens of computer security
conferences, workshops, and government/private organizations
world wide, contributed articles and chapters to several magazines
and books, and co-authored the first complete book on DDoS, titled
"Internet Denial of Service: Attack and Defense Mechanisms."

His home page can be found at http://staff.washington.edu/dittrich/

Long form bio


Dave Dittrich is a Senior Security Engineer and Researcher in
the Information School (iSchool) at the University of Washington. He has
worked at the University of Washington since 1990.  He is also a
member and Officer of the Honeynet Project and member of
Seattle's "Agora" computer security group.

Dave is perhaps most widely known for his research into Distributed
Denial of Service attack tools, starting with the first public
analyses of DDoS and an invited talk at the November 1999 CERT
Distributed System Intruder Tools Workshop and leading to talks at
SANS, the USENIX Security Symposium, JASON summer workshop, DDoS BoF
sessions at RSA 2000, NANOG, and SANS. Dave recieved one of SANS'
Security Technology Leadership Awards in 2000 for his work in
understanding DDoS tools, and was named by Information Security
Magazine as one of the "Security Seven" for 2005 (representing the
education sector.)

Dave has authored chapters in the first edition of the Honeynet
Project's "Know Your Enemy" and "The Hacker's Challenge", co-authored
two articles with Kenneth Himma -- "Active Response to Computer
Intrusions" and "Hackers, Crackers, and Computer Criminals" -- for the
"Handbook on Information Security" (John Wiley and Sons, 2003) and
co-authored the first complete book on DDoS, titled "Internet Denial
of Service: Attack and Defense Mechanisms" (Mirkovic, Dietrich,
Dittrich, and Ryher, Prentice Hall PTR, December, 2004.)

In the area of Computer Forensics, Dave has taught Unix Forensic
Analysis at the Black Hat Briefings, lead the Honeynet Project's
popular Forensic Challenge, and both taught in and co-chaired SANS'
first forensic track at SANS FIRE '01, and has guest lectured and
collaborated on labs with faculty at several Universities and
Community Colleges.

Dave is one of the leading researchers into a topic he calls "the
Active Response Continuum", which involves the legal, ethical, and
technical frameworks for responding to large-scale computer attacks.
He has presented on the topic at an I4 meeting; several Agora
workshops in 2001 and 2003; a workshop at George Mason University in
2005; panels at SecureWorld Expo Seattle, Washington State Bar
Association Cybercrime III conference, and American Bar Association
summer meeting in 2004; a keynote address at the 2003 Society for the
Policing of Cyberspace (POLCYB) conference in Richmond, BC, Canada;
and a talk at AusCERT 2005 in Brisbane, Australia.

Dave has also spoken at CanSecWest in Vancouver, Canada, OlymFair in
Seoul, South Korea, HAL 2001 in the Netherlands, AusCERT in Brisbane,
Australia, and to groups at the NSA, CIA, DoD, and the FBI Academy.

In his "spare" time, Dave enjoys photography (a side business),
hiking, rock climbing, and ski mountaineering the volcanoes and
Cascade mountain range in the Pacific Northwest.

His massive home page can be found at http://staff.washington.edu/dittrich/

Back to home page