What Conference would/did you enjoy the most?

Please share your experience or recommendation for the BEST Security conference.

There are several that I'm interested in the coming year and I'm trying to narrow it down to one : RSA, Blackhat, Defkon, HackerHaulted (although it's hosted in Miami during the peak of the hurricane season

). Any recommendations?

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dynamik

Thought about Shmoocon since you're in DC?

I'd like to do that, Toorcon, Defcon, Blackhat, and I'd like to throw in a Source/Brucoon combo some year

Paul Boz

SANS has some very interesting conferences in the DC / Boston area on national security and cyber terrorism, which is about as "legit" as the security business gets. National Security is the pentacle of the security game.

TrainingDaze

Yeah I'm split between Blackhat/Shmoocon which both will be in my area around January 2011. I'd really love to go to one of the SANS training seminars since I've always been self-study it would be interesting to attend their bootcamp style training for a change and earning a gpen or gcih would be awesome!

Currently I'm planning on going from ceh to oscp...I'm relatively new in pentesting and slowly getting my feet wet, would you recommend getting gpen first instead of oscp? or maybe gcih before any of the others?

dynamik

Black Hat also costs about 10x as much as Shmoocon, and Schmoocon tickets go FAST.

I'd go CEH > GPEN > OSCP if you're going to do all three.

TrainingDaze

Thanks dynamik! Your recommendation means a lot and I really want to build a strong foundation so ceh>gpen>oscp it is!

My work will pay for 1 conference per year so the sticker price of blackhat isn't so much a factor. Maybe I will pay for Shmoocon out of pocket, unless there is a SANS conference that really catches my eye.

dynamik

You'd want the Penetration Testing Summit / SANS Fire, which just happened a couple of months ago. That'd be an ideal place to do the GPEN course if you're going to take that in-person.

Shmoocon is definitely doable out-of-pocket; I'll be paying my own way (assuming I don't drop the ball with registration like I did last year).

You might want to put the eLearnSecurity course before or after GPEN. I'll be adding that one on later this year.

TrainingDaze

Thats EXACTLY what I'm looking for, and it's taught by Ed Skoudis to boot! Have you attended this?

I hope they offer this summit again in the coming year!

Bl8ckr0uter

You guys must be made of money

dynamik

Yea, it looks awesome. I couldn't justify the costs and had already exhausted my training budget, but it'd be difficult to pass up if I was as close as you. It seems like it'll be an annual event that takes place along SANS Fire.

knwminus wrote: »

You guys must be made of money

I haven't been to any of these; I've just made a wish-list. You can also view a lot of the presentations online, buy DVDs, and so on. Hak5, PaulDotCom, etc. also cover them and/or have guests on.

Also, check out the Pentesting Perfect Storm series by the InGuardians guys: http://www.ethicalhacker.net/component/option,com_smf/Itemid,54/topic,5318.0/

tiersten

I would go to Shmoocon but man is it far! Last one I went to was 26C3.