Friday, February 28, 2014

RSA Conference 2014: Thursday

I woke up and it was absolutely pouring out, I thought it was going to be a repeat of yesterday.  Fortunately, by the time I started walking down the hill towards the Moscone Center, it had stopped raining.  And, while eating breakfast I noticed the sun coming out, a welcome addition.  Breakfast is served 7-8 in the morning.  The first conference I had scheduled was 9:20, but I thought to myself, I don't want to waste the time, so I decided on an 8:00 talk.  I'm glad I did.  Here's the talks I went to today:
  • Cloud Ninja: Catch Me If You Can - by Rob Ragan and Oscar Salazar.  Initially, I had this time slot open but at the last minute, I decided to pick a talk and go.  I'm glad I did.  This talk was awesome.  Initially, I thought it might be neat to hear a session with a little offense to it, seeing as how I mostly focus on defensive security.  But, as the talk focused on (ab)using free trials of company's software to build a botnet, I realized that there were dire implications for the company where I work.  This was a great talk that gave me information to go home and battle the developers.
  • Keeping Up with the Joneses: How Does Your Insider Threat Program Stack Up - by Dawn Cappelli and Randall Trzeciak.  Probably of all the talks I scheduled myself to see, this was number one.  I have their book, so it was great to hear Dawn and Randall talk.  Of course they backed up their research with plenty of numbers and examples.  They gave great advice on building and working an Insider Threat program.
  • The Future of Exploits, Developing Hidden C&C and Kittens by James Lyne. I picked this talk as I wanted to hear a talk by one of our company's vendors and I suspected it might get a little deep.  It didn't get too deep, and I'll tell you, I've never laughed so hard in a conference talk.  A great talk, kept light, with lots of great information.  And, now I've learned a great little story to explain buffer overflows.
I did not attend the Keynote talks today, instead I took a walk up to Fisherman's Wharf to see the Rock, seals, and a tour of the USS Pampanito.

I did attend the Codebreakers Bash, which was really well done.  They gave out these blinking LEDs, and now it is my hotel room has become a disco.  I'll have to cover it before going to sleep.

I fly out tomorrow, in the afternoon.  So, I'm on the fence with going to a talk tomorrow.  I'm tempted, to go see one more.  Probably the decision will be made by what time I get up. I will miss the keynotes tomorrow, and that means missing Stephen Colbert.  But I think I'll be ready to get on a plane.

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