SANS HackFest, November 2, 3, Washington DC

The annual SANS | HackFest Summit is returning to the Washington DC area in November (2nd – 3rd). I hear from Ed Skoudis that he’s throwing everything he can in to this event to make it truly memorable and impactful. He said this year’s theme is, “Offense Informs Defense”, the core philosophy behind the Critical Security Controls. The 2-day summit is an opportunity for infosec professionals to get together and learn about the latest attacks and where the penetration testing industry is heading.

This event has over 20 industry-leading speakers and panelists, and after seeing the line-up, this looks like a good opportunity, they are passionate security researchers and practitioners who want to pass on their knowledge to others. The event includes 3-nights of the SANS NetWars Experience. Ed and his team have overhauled NetWars so that players can now play in teams or solo with a lot of other great improvements.

One of the coolest things about HackFest is one night of CyberCity missions. Have you seen CyberCity? Imagine a really detailed model train set and underneath the table are the actual ICS and SCADA systems that help make modern cities work. Everyone at HackFest will get to spend a night going undergoing missions in CyberCity. I promise you will never think about Internet of Things the same.

For those in the know each year at HackFest, Ed plans an incredible secret field trip for all HackFest summit attendees. Last year SANS took everyone to the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum for a private event where they got the museum all to their own. Ed and his team developed an App that could be downloaded where everyone could interact with each other and the museum by solving crypto challenges based on the history of aviation. They called it the “Hackers of Gravity.” This could be where Nintendo got the idea for Pokemon Go. www.sans.org/hackfest.