Gordon Lyon
Gordon Lyon (also known by his pseudonym Fyodor Vaskovich) 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.
Also recorded as Gordon Fyodor Lyon
Gordon Lyon

Jacob Appelbaum · CC BY-SA 2.0
- Name
- Gordon Lyon
- Known for
- Nmap
- Born
- 1953. · California.
- Nationality
- United States.
- Occupation
- engineer, software developer, writer, hacker and computer scientist.
- Languages
- English.
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Documentary summary
Gordon Lyon (also known by his pseudonym Fyodor Vaskovich) 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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Documentary evidence
Documentary basis
Authority files
wikidata · Q3091346 · wikipedia · Gordon Lyon
In this article
Key facts
Key facts
• Name — Gordon Lyon • Other Names — Fyodor Vaskovich • Known for — Nmap • Website — http: insecure.org/fyodor
Personal life
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. Most of his programming is done in the C, C++, and Perl programming languages.
Opposition to grayware
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.
Conferences
Conferences
Lyon has presented at DEFCON, CanSecWest, FOSDEM, IT Security World, Security Masters' Dojo, ShmooCon, IT-Defense, SFOBug, and other security conferences.
Websites
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
Identity and overview
Identity and overview
The following is established of the heading itself.
Places
Named by the record
Places
Only places the record itself states, plotted where the house gazetteer settles their coordinates. Nothing is inferred from a name or a nationality.
Palo Alto.
Residences
California.
Birth place
Published books
Published books
• Know Your Enemy: Revealing the Security Tools, Tactics, and Motives of the Blackhat Community, co-authored with other members of the Honeynet Project. • Stealing the Network: How to Own a Continent, co-authored with Kevin Mitnick and other hackers. • Nmap Network Scanning
Publications and editions
Catalogued output
Publications and editions
The following works and productions are recorded by name or by count. Recorded with the occupation computer scientist. It is also recorded that gordon Lyon is recorded as a citizen of United States. It is also recorded that gordon Lyon is recorded with the gender male. It is also recorded that gordon Lyon was born on 1 January 1953. Institutional cataloguing adds that gordon Lyon is recorded with the occupation hacker. Recorded with the occupation engineer. Institutional cataloguing adds that gordon Lyon is recorded with the occupation software developer. It is also recorded that gordon Lyon is recorded with the occupation writer.
Primary material
Documents and archives
reference work
- “Gordon Lyon”, English Wikipedia, consulted as further reading
Reputable secondary · Wikipedia
authority record
- Wikidata, structured authority record Q3091346: Gordon Lyon
General reference · Wikidata
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.! S a f e m o d e . o r g !. 2019-05-15.
- 2.Leyden, John. Experts troll 'biggest security mag in the world' with DICKish submission. The Register. 2012-10-05.
- 3.About me.
- 4.Krebs, Brian. Download.com Bundling Toolbars, Trojans?. Krebs on Security. 2011-12-06.
- 5.Lyon, Gordon. Download.com Caught Adding Malware to Nmap & Other Software. 2012-06-27.
- 6.Fyodor's Nmap Presentations.
- 7.DEFCONConference. DEF CON 13 - Fyodor, Hacking Nmap. YouTube. 2014-02-07.
- 8.The Honeypot Project. Know Your Enemy: Revealing the Security Tools, Tactics, and Motives of the Blackhat Community. Addison-Wesley. 2002. 0-201-74613-1.
- 9.Syngress. Stealing the Network: How to Own a Continent. 2004. 1-931836-05-1.
- 10.Lyon, Gordon. Nmap Network Scanning. Nmap Project. 2008. 978-0-9799587-1-7.
References
Citations
References
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reference work
Secondary witnessauthority record
General reference
Further particulars
Held on the record
Further particulars
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This entry is compiled from 2 catalogued sources across 2 independent registers. The registers consulted are Wikipedia and Wikidata. Every statement above is held against the register that stated it; where the registers are silent, the entry is silent.
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 20 August 2026.
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