Donn Parker earned BA (1952) and MA (1954) degrees in mathematics from the University of California at Berkeley. He has over 50 years of experience in the computer field in computer programming, computer systems management, consulting, teaching, and research including 30 years at SRI International pioneering and working in information and computer security. Prior to his SRI employment, he was a senior research engineer and systems manager for General Dynamics for eight years and Control Data Corporation for eight years. He is currently a retired emeritus senior consultant engaged in writing and lecturing, and his collected papers are archived at the Charles Babbage Institute at the University of Minnesota.

Parker became active in the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) from 1954. He was elected Secretary of the ACM from 1966 to 1970 while serving on the ACM Council from 1964 to 1974 and was chairman of the professional standards and practices committee for several years. In addition, he is a member of the Information Systems Security Association and is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional(CISSP).

Donn has been involved with many other organizations. He is a grantee of the National Science Foundation, and the US Department of Justice, and is the founder in 1986 (while at SRI International) of the International Information Integrity Institute (I-4) an ongoing confidential service to large, international corporations and governments now owned and operated by KPMG-UK.

Parker has received many awards in the information security field. He has lectured at conferences, seminars, and universities worldwide. He is author of six books on computer crime and security as well as hundreds of articles, papers, and public reports. He was the subject writer on computer crime for the Encyclopædia Britannica, Groliers Encyclopedia, Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia, and the Encyclopedia of Computer Science (Nature Publishing Group, Anthony Ralston, Editor). In 2002 Parker proposed the Parkerian Hexad, six atomic and orthogonal elements of information security that extent the traditional model of Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability(CIA triad).

Parker has lectured for the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco, Churchill Club of Silicon Valley, many universities, and the World Organization of Detectives. He was the subject of three articles in People Magazine and profiled in the Los Angeles Times and Information Security Magazine and has appeared on national and international television including 60 Minutes, NOVA, Today, and 20/20 and is frequently quoted in news and business media on information security. He was the consulting editor and columnist for the Journal of Information Systems Security (Auerbach) from 1994 to 1997.