BSides Background

With the Security BSides Conference in St. John’s only a few days away, I thought it would be interesting to speak with Norbert Griffin, Principal Security Consultant at Hidden Target Consulting, and the organizer for the conference.

This will be the first BSides conference for many attendees. Can you tell us a bit about what your first BSides conference experience was like?

My first event was BSides in Las Vegas in 2010 which was the second event there and I volunteered on the security team. I got to listen to some great talks from what I considered big name security people. The best part though was that I also got to sit and chat with those same people. I really wanted to be involved more at that point.

I have since attended\volunteered at five other BSides which included Ottawa, Halifax and again working security for BSides Las Vegas this past July. This is our second BSides in St. John’s and we are the first in Canada to do that. I also try to help other events across Canada where I can. I really enjoy being involved.

What do you hope people will take away from this year’s conference?

Well I hope they at least take away some security knowledge. I hope they also start to feel the need to be involved as BSides is volunteer effort and we could use the help. I feel the key to getting the most out of this is to actively participate and contribute. We can use more events like this to share knowledge and to build the security community here in St. John’s and that could happen if more people were involved.

For those who may be new to conference attending in general, what do you recommend bringing?

A willingness to participate and ask questions. Beyond that maybe something for taking notes. We should have all the food and refreshments you need for the day, thanks to our sponsors.

As of this blog post, there is ONE ticket left, so if you haven’t already got yours, you’d better hurry. There will be some awesome prizes drawn for during the day, as well as the grand prize draw for an iPad!

For those who are attending, I’ll be working at the registration desk along with Jonathan Wall and Jamie Goodyear, so make sure to say hello!