My final event of the year will be Black Hat Europe in London, the first week in December. This will be my second Black Hat event; the first was this past August when me and 20,000 of my closest security professional friends invaded Las Vegas.
I know it may seem odd for a career database administrator to attend an event catered to hackers and developers. But that’s the “old” Black Hat, in my opinion. Today’s security landscape is far different than when Black Hat started 20-plus years ago. Back then security was an afterthought. Today we understand security is a shared responsibility. The attendees of Black Hat reflect this shift, as do the vendors in the expo hall.
Being a new event for me, I went out of my way to meet people to better understand their community and culture. In Vegas, I was able to mingle with members of the Azure Sentinel team, including John Lambert. In conversation with John and his team, the quote “Defenders think in lists, attackers think in graphs” was mentioned.
Yeah, I found my people.
Many events I attend are hosted by large vendors (Microsoft, VMware, Cisco, AWS, etc.) and as such many of the sessions at those events are product marketing-focused. Even community sessions are often a showcase of product features. Black Hat is not a marketing event as much as it’s a university-level symposium. For example, in Vegas I attended a session on how researchers are using mice to help detect deep fakes. There was no company behind the session, just some graduate students talking about their research project. It was wonderful.
So, I’m looking forward to more of the same in London. I’ve no idea the size of this event, but I expect the content to be brilliant. I’m eager to meet people in and around the booth and talk to them about the portfolio of security products we have. I want valued feedback on how to make our products better. I want to help our customers shift their security focus, helping them move from protection to detection.
But most of all, I’m using this trip as an excuse to watch Arsenal play Brighton on Thursday evening. Look for me in the stands—I’ll be the one in the red jersey, red scarf, and Black Hat.
