BSidesSF

I could waste at least 45 minutes writing up pretty much the same post as my fellow wrangler Allan Alford took the time to summarize. Hell, someone even confused me with you at one point 🤠! Got the white and black hats crossed? My additional observation...with all of the talk around #AI and also the many peers, mentors and friends that have experienced a #jobloss / change in the past two years....it has driven us back to re-evaluating what is really important, and that is our #humanconnections and networks. No matter how many LLMs and GPTs flood the market they can never replace these critical interactions. It did feel to me that rekindling connections was the big theme personally as I caught up with so many old friends and new contacts on topics of Cyber Risk Quantification and Management, Risk Transfer, and OT/ICS Security. Special thanks to Larry Whiteside Jr., Jimmy S, CISSP, CRISC, CISMCasey Marquette CISSP, CRISC, Allan Alford, Rafal Los, Dani Woolf, Mel Rico Reyes, BSidesSF, John Sapp Jr, Jack Jones, Richard Seiersen, George Kamide, Rachel Arnold, Mark Liggett, David Whelen, Joshua Copeland, Chris Roberts, David Spark (and many others) for being those "gravity wells" in our communities and bringing great people together for great conversations. Now, it is going to take me at least a week to sort this all out with our DeNexus team. Meanwhile, we have NolaCon kicking off this week so if you missed #BRSec, #BSidesNOLA, #BSidesSF, or #RSAC or any of this. There is still a chance to strengthen those human connections. Otherwise, get some downtime people!

It was the first time I attended BSidesSF this year, wanted to share some impressions and take aways. The energy of the conference is unbelievable, you can bump into amazing people thinking and caring deeply about security and have meaningful discussions on tough topics. I enjoyed a couple talks on UX and security (Dylan Ayrey Hon Kwok Miccah Castorina), the topic that I feel is under-appreciated, leading to less than optimal security outcomes. Here I learned about Nielsen's usability heuristics and several interesting tools and sites (repokid, howtorotate.com, keyhacks). The highlight of the conference for me in the "talks" department was Maya Kaczorowski's session that touched on how to come up and evaluate security startup ideas, and 5 mini-pitches for products that don't exist yet (but should 😀). Another insightful session was "Insane in the Supply Chain: Threat modeling for attacks on AI systems" (Eoin Wickens Marta J.), showing that ML models are often not "data" (i.e. weights for the model) but "code", and so untrusted models should be treated accordingly. The mentioned talks will be posted soon on the #BSidesSF YouTube channel, check them out! Thank you to all the speakers, organizers and volunteers, I'll definitely be back next year.

Finally home after a much longer than expected trip back home from San Francisco. I had a blast meeting lots of folks, in person for a change, and overall a very productive week. My schedule was so packed, in fact, that this is the first year ever in which I didn't set foot in the Expo to do my usual safari. Highlights of the week include being interviewed by my good friend Adrian Sanabria and the Security Weekly Productions team, presenting at the amazing Pitch for Charity event organized by Chris Castaldo and the Security Tinkerers. Plus, seeing old friends Alex Pinto, Fernando Montenegro and Eduardo Pinheiro in person is always a treat. So many people I forgot to take pictures with! Need to be more diligent next year. A big thank you to all the organizers of BSidesSF and RSA Conference, our beloved Tenchi Security customers and investors, and everyone working hard to make the world a more secure place. See you all next year!

What a busy, but amazing week at BSidesSF and RSA Conference! Some highlights: My BSidesSF Talk, "AI: Best Janitor or Worst Superhero" was a hit. Folks appreciated me pulling GenAI back down to earth and trying to reset expectations to something more realistic 😘 A glance at their YouTube account suggests they'll get videos uploaded in the near future. For now, here's the talk abstract. Hoping to get this talk accepted at more conferences, as it is continuing to evolve every time I give it (this is the 2nd time) https://lnkd.in/eKrgt8cf My RSA talk, "Two Steps Forward for SaaS Adoption, One Step Back for Security" went much better than I anticipated (the topic was less exciting than what I normally speak about), but had several attendees tell me it was the best talk they saw at RSA 🤯 It is now available on demand, if you missed it: https://lnkd.in/eCNMPMUj I was thrilled to get to help interview Mikko Hypponen along with Paul Asadoorian, Mandy Logan, CDT, CESSWI, QSP, and Bill Swearingen about his first ever RSA Keynote! https://lnkd.in/eYtuwK69 I had a blast doing 14 executive interviews with Security Weekly Productions throughout the week, in Broadcast Alley. You can find them all over on the Security Weekly YouTube Channel: https://lnkd.in/eFsw9XMs 📺 Silverfort - The Role Identity Plays in Nearly Every Attack—Including Ransomware, with Hed Kovetz 📺Tenchi Security - Risk Reduction: the missing link in Third Party Cyber Risk Management, with Alexandre Sieira 📺Intezer - One Big Problem SOC Teams can ACTUALLY Solve with AI, with Jim McDonough 📺Open Systems - How network transformation is driving demand for SASE and Zero Trust Edge services, with Tim Roddy 📺Lumu Technologies - How to revamp your cybersecurity in the middle of the chaos, with Ricardo Villadiego 📺AlgoSec - Business applications, they are the problem and the solution, with Chris Thomas 📺DirectDefense - Securing Health: Navigating Ransomware Threats in Partnership with an MSSP, with Jim Broome 📺LimaCharlie - Making platformization beneficial to the cybersecurity industry, with Maxime Lamothe-Brassard 📺Graylog, Inc. Achieving Cyber Resilience and Strengthening Security Posture, with Andy Grolnick 📺Introducing Nightwing - A New Intelligence Services Company, 40 Years in the Making, with Jon Check 📺Deep Instinct - The EDR Honeymoon Period is Over: The Power of Deep Learning to Combat AI Threats, with Carl Froggett 📺Blumira - Leveling the Cybersecurity Playing Field, with Jim Simpson 📺SquareX is disrupting the browser security market, with Vivek Ramachandran And last, but certainly not least, I treasured the time I got to spend with all my friends and fellow Security Tinkerers!

Our experience at this year’s San Francisco Security was nothing short of extraordinary! To kick things off, we proudly hosted a Community Village Table at BSidesSF, where our President, Marco Palacios, and long-term member Lenin Alevski led an engaging workshop on CyberChef and Kubernetes security, respectively. Monday marked the debut of our much anticipated HackTheBay Conference, which exceeded all expectations. With workshops, insightful speakers, a dynamic panel discussion, and an amazing CTF competition, the day was filled with amazing energy. Despite preparing for a capacity of 200 attendees, we were thrilled to see over 500 people sign up. To those unable to attend due to capacity constraints, please accept our apologies; we are committed to ensuring this won’t be an issue at next year's event. From Tuesday onwards, we were honored to host the Dark Arts Village at RSA Conference to further enrich our cybersecurity community engagement. Our members Max vonBlankenburg and Lenin Alevski gave an outstanding talk on Kubernetes security at the RSAC Sandbox Stage. We want to express our heartfelt gratitude to everyone who joined us for any of these events. Your support is not just appreciated; it's what fuels our passion and drives us to raise the bar continuously. As we eagerly anticipate next year's RSAC, we invite you to stay connected with us on our Meetup page for updates on our upcoming events. In fact, we have an exciting session scheduled next week on WiFi hacking. Thank you once again for your support!

Another great BSidesSF experience in the books! Got to see the diverse perspectives on the opportunities, risks and emergent behaviors at the intersection of AI/ML and Cybersecurity. AI Village was a standout experience this year, and I am grateful that the village organizers decided to be present at BSidesSF! On the other hand, the talks and the workshop on Kubernetes gave me opportunity to reflect on my own knowledge of Kubernetes security topics, and gave me perspectives and ideas for improvements! Last but not least, I also had a great time at Adversary Village talks, another Village which decided to extend their presence at BSidesSF. In summary, Reed Loden and the team are amazingly executing at making the conference greater year after year. I will be back in 2025!

Had a one-of-a-kind experience at 🔥BsidesSF 🔥last weekend presenting in the AMC theater with my fellow panelists Trupti Shiralkar Nandita Rao Narla Mohammad Tahaei, Ph.D. and Apoorvaa Deshpande. We dove deep into the world of Gen AI focusing on Privacy, Safety and Ethical attacks and challenges. We explored how we address these issues through a combination of regulations, privacy engineering techniques like PETS and programs like red teaming. We also explored some AI Frameworks like NIST RMF and upcoming regulations like EU AI Act which provide a great foundation to those getting started in the journey and the importance of cross-functional teams with diversity of thought and experience. Big Shout out 🎉to Trupti Shiralkar for bringing us together, organizing us from start to finish and moderating the panel. Thanks to all the folks who attended this session and reached out with questions. This session was recorded, I will share the video when it is available. #GenAI #cybersecurity #AISafety #ResponsibleAI #AIPrivacy #BsidesSF #LLMSecurity

Why did the coffee call the police? Because it was mugged. #DadJokes #HappyWednesday #Humor My favorite conference goodie in many years - fancy llama coffee from Vanta at BSidesSF this past weekend.

This weekend, I attended BSidesSF and it was awesome! I've been to BSidesSF many times in the past—first as a regular attendee, then as a volunteer. Now, I had the chance to speak at the conference for the first time ever. I had such a great time teaching and learning from others about Kubernetes and container technologies, hearing about the challenges they face and how they're solving them. This is where real security conversations happen! I saw many familiar faces and met new, awesome people. I feel truly blessed to be part of this great community. Was great to see you all, next stop: HackTheBay Conference and then RSA Conference 😁 Marco Palacios Max vonBlankenburg Jen Winters Lauren A. Jessica Archer Pacific Hackers Association Karan Dwivedi Keren G. Caitlin Montgomery Ayman Elsawah ☕👋🏼 Jason Haddix Prashant venkatesh Becky Gietzel, CISSP Weijia Yan Veronica Doak Kudos to everybody (sorry if I’m missing someone) Happy Hacking! 💻 🏴☠️ #cybersecurity #hacking #kubernetes #cloud #security #bugbounty #community #conference #ctf #redteam #blueteam #web #docker #containers #pentest

That’s a wrap at BSidesSF! Participated in my first CTF and caught 6 flags 🎯 made it to the the top 200. Met some of the most genuinely nice humans in my career so far. 🙂 Learned to pick locks. 🔐 Received helpful career advice.📝 Had some of the best lavender coffee. ☕️ I had no idea lavender coffee was a thing before this event. The lanyard was epic 🤖 and happy to have picked up some cool stickers. Presentation topics where cutting edge. Artificial Intelligence. I’ll have to catch up on some I missed from the YouTube recordings. 🎥 “You Can’t Spell Dystopia Without AI” 😯Leaving this one alone for now 🤖🌉 All in all I’ve found my niche and tribe and look forward to attending future #cybersecurity events! #excelsior #bsidessf #ai