Article · Wikipedia archive · Last revised Jun 12, 2026

Gordon Lyon

Gordon Lyon is an American network security expert, creator of Nmap and author of books, websites, and technical papers about network security. He is a founding member of the Honeynet Project and was Vice President of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility.

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Gordon Lyon
Lyon at the Hackers On Planet Earth (HOPE) number 6 conference in 2006
Born1977 (age 48–49)
Other nameFyodor Vaskovich
Known forNmap
Websiteinsecure.org/fyodor

Gordon Lyon (also known by his pseudonym Fyodor Vaskovich)1 is an American network security expert,2 creator of Nmap and author of books, websites, and technical papers about network security. He is a founding member of the Honeynet Project and was Vice President of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility.

Personal life

Lyon has been active in the network security community since the mid-1990s. His handle, "Fyodor", was taken from Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky.3 Most of his programming is done in the C, C++, and Perl programming languages.

Opposition to grayware

In December 2011, Lyon published a post criticizing the fact that Download.com started bundling grayware with their installation managers and expressing concerns users confusing Download.com-offered content for software offered by original authors; he accused them of using deception as well as copyright and trademark violation.45

Conferences

Lyon has presented at DEFCON, CanSecWest, FOSDEM, IT Security World, Security Masters' Dojo, ShmooCon, IT-Defense, SFOBug, and other security conferences.67

Websites

Lyon maintains several network security web sites:

  • Nmap.Org – Host of the Nmap security scanner and its documentation
  • SecTools.Org – The top 100 network security tools (ranked by thousands of Nmap users)
  • SecLists.Org – Archive of the most common security mailing lists
  • Insecure.Org – His main site, offering security news/updates, exploit world archive, and other misc. security resources

Published books

  • Know Your Enemy: Revealing the Security Tools, Tactics, and Motives of the Blackhat Community,8 co-authored with other members of the Honeynet Project.
  • Stealing the Network: How to Own a Continent,9 co-authored with Kevin Mitnick and other hackers.
  • Nmap Network Scanning10
See also

See also

References

References

  1. "! S a f e m o d e . o r g !". May 15, 2019. Archived from the original on May 15, 2019. Retrieved November 24, 2021.
  2. Leyden, John (October 5, 2012). "Experts troll 'biggest security mag in the world' with DICKish submission". The Register. Retrieved January 17, 2021.
  3. "About me". Retrieved January 17, 2021.
  4. Krebs, Brian (December 6, 2011). "Download.com Bundling Toolbars, Trojans?". Krebs on Security. Retrieved January 17, 2021.
  5. Lyon, Gordon (June 27, 2012). "Download.com Caught Adding Malware to Nmap & Other Software". Retrieved January 17, 2021.
  6. "Fyodor's Nmap Presentations". Retrieved January 17, 2021.
  7. DEFCONConference (February 7, 2014). "DEF CON 13 - Fyodor, Hacking Nmap". YouTube. Archived from the original on December 13, 2021. Retrieved January 17, 2021.
  8. The Honeypot Project (2002). Know Your Enemy: Revealing the Security Tools, Tactics, and Motives of the Blackhat Community. Addison-Wesley. ISBN 0-201-74613-1.
  9. 1131ah; Rogers, Russ; Beale, Jay; Grand, Joe; Fyodor; FX; Craig, Paul; Mullen, Timothy; Parker, Tom (2004). Stealing the Network: How to Own a Continent. Syngress. ISBN 1-931836-05-1.
  10. Lyon, Gordon (2008). Nmap Network Scanning. Nmap Project. ISBN 978-0-9799587-1-7.
External links