About the Technical Reviewers

Jerry Lathem has been working with computers for 25 years and in the field of computer security for 15 years. He worked for ten years with the U.S. Department of Defense as a research engineer, working on both information security and computer security. He joined the WheelGroup Corporation (later acquired by Cisco) early in its start-up phase. He has a wide variety of experience, including performing security assessments, developing both defensive and offensive software, and prototyping the first Cisco IDS module for the Catalyst switches. He is currently one of the lead developers for the sensing technology in the Cisco IPS product line.

Shawn Merdinger is an independent security researcher based in Austin, Texas. He previously worked for the Cisco Systems Security Technologies Assessment Team (STAT) where he performed security evaluations on Cisco products. Shawn holds a master's degree from the University of Texas at Austin where he focused on computer and network security.

Marcus Sitzman, CCIE No. 9004, is a network security engineer in the Advanced Services for Network Security team at Cisco Systems. He has more than eight years of experience in the networking field. Since joining Cisco in 2000, he has continued to focus on security technologies and products. He currently provides Cisco customers with security consulting services, including security posture assessments, security designs reviews, and security product implementations. He is a repeat technical speaker at the Cisco Networkers conventions as well as other security conferences.