Watch the Fireside Below, or Click HERE:
Tech Edge hosted a fireside chat on March 25 at RSA Conference 2026 in San Francisco with Rob T. Lee, Chief AI Officer and Chief of Research at SANS. The in-person interview was joined by Editor-at-Large Jarrett Banks and they discussed the introduction of Protocol SIFT, its full forensic analysis under 15 minutes and the open hackathon around this solution this spring, among other topics.
About Rob T. Lee
Rob T. Lee is Chief AI Officer and Chief of Research at the SANS Institute, where he advises boards, CISOs, and government leaders on governing, deploying, and defending AI at scale. He authored the SANS Secure AI Blueprint and led the SANS Critical AI Security Guidelines, which are informing implementation of the EU AI Act through a partnership with OWASP.
A 1996 U.S. Air Force Academy graduate, Lee was a founding member of the 609th Information Warfare Squadron, the Air Force’s first operational cyber warfare unit. He served in AFOSI, where he investigated intrusions including Moonlight Maze, and worked with JTF-CND/GNO, precursors to U.S. Cyber Command. Over roughly six years in offensive cyber operations roles under Title 10/50 authorities with CIA and NSA, he supported operations requiring presidential approval.
Lee later served as a Director at Mandiant, leading incident response across hundreds of Fortune 500 engagements. He co-authored the first three M-Trends reports and contributed heavily to the landmark APT-1 report, which attributed sustained cyber espionage to a PLA unit, reshaping U.S. cybersecurity policy. He created SANS courses FOR500 and FOR508, training tens of thousands of practitioners worldwide.
He serves as a Technical Advisor to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, sits on the CSIS Commission on U.S. Cyber Force Generation, and is a member of the Aspen Institute Cyber Group.
About SANS
The SANS Institute was established in 1989 as a cooperative research and education organization. Today, SANS is the most trusted and, by far, the largest provider of cybersecurity training and certification to professionals in government and commercial institutions worldwide. Renowned SANS instructors teach more than 85 courses at in person and virtual cybersecurity events and OnDemand. GIAC, an affiliate of the SANS Institute, validates practitioner skills through more than 50 hands-on technical certifications in cybersecurity.
The SANS Technology Institute, a regionally accredited independent subsidiary, offers master’s and bachelor’s degrees, graduate certificates, and an undergraduate certificate in cybersecurity. SANS also delivers a wide variety of free resources to the InfoSec community, including consensus projects, research reports, webcasts, podcasts, 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 support and educate the global information security community. www.sans.org.
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