The next SOURCE Conference will be held in Barcelona in September (21 & 22). If you plan to travel across Europe in September, have a look at the current schedule and stop in Spain. Immediately you will notice that talks are split in two categories: “Security & Technology” and “Security & Business“.
Some security events are known to be highly technical and/or going deeply underground. But I find the SOURCE approach interesting. Why? In many organizations, security is organized and maintained by two different teams: the “t-shirts” and the “ties“. The first one speaks about “bits & bytes” while the second is more focused on procedures, compliance and those kind of funny stuff. Honestly, I prefer to wear a t-shirt. But, after some years of experience, you have to admit that both are necessary and complementary: They have to work together to keep security to the highest level. Why don’t help them to learn from each others? That’s the purpose of the SOURCE events. As explained on the website: “The purpose of SOURCE Conference is to bridge the gap between technical excellence and business acumen within the security industry. “.
While checking the current schedule, I saw amazing speakers foreseen and I already met or know personally some of them:
- Wim Remes will speak about the SIEM solutions and how to implement them in the right way. (I’m also involved in SIEM project, I can just push in the same direction as Wim!)
- Philippe Langlois will explain how telecommunication networks are vulnerable to security attacks. If you’re involved in projects with SS7, this is for you!
- Brian Honan will review the lessons learns while implementing the Irish CERT. Also one of my favorite.
- Iftach Ian Amit will make some clarifications about the Cyberwar/Cybercrime.
To give you a good example of interaction between the technical and business presentations, let’s take Wim’s and Brian’s talks. Once you deployed your SIEM solutions, it will detect abnormal behavior and generate security incidents. How to deal with them? What about the incident management procedures? Brian will certainly give you some advices. This prove that everybody must work in the same direction.
This promises to be a great cocktail (to be consumed without moderation!) :
- 1/3 technical,
- 1/3 business,
- 1/3 fun (hey, Barcelona is a great city! 😉 ).
Last but not least, if you plan to attend BruCON in Brussels, you’ll get a 50% discount for SOURCE Barcelona! I hope to be able to go over there…
Xavier : Yes! As I see the schedule develop, this is a conference that succeeds in striking the perfect balance between business and technical talks. I am more and more humbled when I see the big names added to the schedule but I am convinced this is going to be an awesome conference. As per the SIEM talk, yes I will step on some sore toes but I will try to provide some of the bandages too. I hope to see you in Barcelona !!!