Tony Sager retired from the NSA in June 2012 after 34 years of increasingly broad responsibility; his last job was Chief Operating Officer of the Information Assurance Directorate.

Before that Sager created and led the Vulnerability Analysis and Operations Group (VAO), a 650-person brain trust of cyber vulnerability researchers, red teamers, blue teamers and other technical wizards at NSA. VAO was responsible for some of NSA's most important advancements in cyber defense, and emerged as a national leader and community partner in open security standards, guidance, automation and best practices - reasoning that we all need to work together to protect the nation. He is currently working with the SANS Institute on a variety of special projects, including the Top 20 Critical Security Controls.