SANSFIRE 2009
Another SansFire is fast approaching (June 13th) and for the second year in a row I'll be staying home. The economy and my company being bought out by another, much larger one have conspired to put my training cycle on an indefinite hold. I work for a really security conscious organization that unfortunately is too large to consider third party training of much value (so I hear, it's SO big I have little insight outside of my own location).
One of the backfire issues with really big companies that put a large amount of resources into network/information security is that there is the assumption they can do all things better in-house than third parties like SANS. The training I've received so far since working for them has been all very basic stuff, and all dealing with policy/regulation/awareness. No technical training whatsoever (and I haven't been able to find any that exists except for developers), so my only choice is to go back to self-education.
If you go to SansFire this year (I see they've moved the venue to Baltimore this time), please really both enjoy it and get everything you possibly can out of it. Hit the BoF sessions, the SANS@Night free training, and the ISC presentations. And sure, have a beer with your fellow NetSec folks. That's part of the reason the live events are so good, isn't it? Networking and sharing info back and forth after the classrooms have all closed for the day.
You never know, next year you may be sitting on the sidelines like me and wishing you were there. Get it while you can!
One of the backfire issues with really big companies that put a large amount of resources into network/information security is that there is the assumption they can do all things better in-house than third parties like SANS. The training I've received so far since working for them has been all very basic stuff, and all dealing with policy/regulation/awareness. No technical training whatsoever (and I haven't been able to find any that exists except for developers), so my only choice is to go back to self-education.
If you go to SansFire this year (I see they've moved the venue to Baltimore this time), please really both enjoy it and get everything you possibly can out of it. Hit the BoF sessions, the SANS@Night free training, and the ISC presentations. And sure, have a beer with your fellow NetSec folks. That's part of the reason the live events are so good, isn't it? Networking and sharing info back and forth after the classrooms have all closed for the day.
You never know, next year you may be sitting on the sidelines like me and wishing you were there. Get it while you can!