BSides Melbourne

Thanks to the team at TheBigBrick in Bayswater (https://lnkd.in/gmHFc5Xa) for helping us create an excellent gift for our speakers and VIPs for this year's conference.

Incredibly grateful to have been part of another amazing BSides Melbourne weekend! A huge thank you to everyone who made it so special: our brilliant speakers who shared cutting-edge research and first-hand career experiences, tireless volunteers who kept everything running smoothly, generous sponsors who made it possible, and every single attendee who brought such energy and enthusiasm. The quality of talks and workshops this year was outstanding. I was fortunate to contribute my Cyber Startup 101 talk, hoping to inspire the next generation of cybersecurity entrepreneurs. And of course, had an absolute blast running the annual Cyber Cyber Trivia, including a Sudden Death Round to resolve a draw for 3rd place! Some stats from Cyber Cyber Trivia: 📊 8 rounds x 8 questions per round, for a maximum of 64 points 📊 30 fantastic teams competed 📊 The questions were hard! Top score was 50/64 points - big 'grats to Team InfoSect 🍻 📊 In terms of category scores, Cryptography experts were apparently everywhere, while GRC... needs some love 😅 📊 The toughest question? BitLocker's default cipher (AES-128) stumped all but one team! 📊 Parental puns made: I lost count, but hopefully the more attentive were able to complete your bingo cards 😉 Many thanks to Troy Defty for all your help with curating, automating, and tallying, and Chantelle Ralevska & Joshua Headrick for volunteering at last minute to be judges - legends! 😎 The real magic of BSides Melbourne happens in between sessions - the hallway conversations - making new friends in the espresso line, meeting online friends in 3D for the first time, encouraging people earlier in their career, and planning future collaboration on shared interests. Special appreciation to my fellow committee members 🫶 who worked tirelessly behind the scenes for months and months to make this happen. Lidia Giuliano, Kirstin McIntosh, Brett Williams, and Lukasz Gogolkiewicz: it's an absolute privilege to be part of this amazing team and watch our community grow stronger each year. PS. in all the excitement I totally forgot to take any photos at all, so the video loop below is the best I can manage for now!

Another conference training down - cheers to the BSides Melbourne crew for putting on such a smooth and welcoming experience for all. Last Friday we had a room filled at a sold-out training session, where I took participants through a hands-on vulnerability detection workshop using CodeQL. We went through some motivating concepts, learned how to write basic detection queries, covered Data Flow and Taint Tracking, and finally how to operationalize it all with variant analysis to find issues at scale. Thanks to all the attendees - it was a tough session given the time constraints, but we got through it all. If you'd like to learn about this session, drop me a message

Had an amazing time at BSides Melbourne 2024! 🌟 One highlight for me was Thomas Roccia's talk, “The XZ Backdoor Story: The Undercover Operation That Set the Internet on Fire.” It was about how a rogue developer added a backdoor to the XZ/liblzma library, how it was found in time to prevent problems, and the lessons we can learn from it. A special thanks to Harriet Farlow for the awesome coin—I’ll treasure it as a reminder of the inspiring and fun conversations at BSides Melbourne. Big thanks to Ricki Burke for his incredibly helpful data-driven insights into the cybersecurity job market trends and emerging roles, and for the valuable advice on improving resume—it was much appreciated! I’d also like to extend my gratitude to Lukasz Gogolkiewicz, Chathura Abeydeera, Sajeeb Lohani, Kaif Ahsan, Ashwini Srivastava, Sanam Makadia, Chantelle Ralevska, Alistair Longley, UnixGuy, Conor Aitken, and Michael van Coppenhagen for their valuable insights and advice. Whether it was career tips, technical discussions, or general inspiration, you all made this event even more meaningful. Big thanks to the organizers, speakers, and attendees for making this such a memorable event. Let’s keep the energy and ideas flowing! #BSidesMelbourne #Cybersecurity #Community #Learning

This weekend, I had the incredible opportunity to attend my first-ever tech conference, BSides Melbourne—and what an amazing experience it was! I am deeply grateful to my mentor, Jatin Kumar, for making this possible and encouraging me to explore this enriching event. Here are some of my key takeaways from the conference: 💡 Cybersecurity: More Than Just Data Protection Hayley V. 's keynote was a profound reminder that cybersecurity safeguards more than just data—it protects lives. Hayley’s talk uncovered the unsettling link between counterfeit goods and organized crime, emphasizing the broader societal impact of our choices. Her stark insights reinforced the importance of cybersecurity in today’s interconnected world. 💡 Credential Theft and Detection Best Practices An engaging interesting talk from Troy Defty Kathy Zhu They stressed the need for diverse data sources for log granularity, effective detection, and prevention. Their practical advice on deploying robust controls to counter credential theft was incredibly valuable. 💡 The Basics Still Matter: Foundational Skills in CybersecurityI was captivated by Kat Fitzgerald presentation, which underscored the importance of foundational knowledge in cybersecurity—ranging from CIS benchmarks and threat modeling (using the MITRE ATT&CK framework) to leveraging home labs for hands-on learning. Kat also emphasized that human expertise and critical thinking must supersede over-reliance on AI tools. 💡 Mail Spoofing and Header Manipulation Ben Wilson delivered a fascinating talk on email spoofing, detailing how subtle changes to email headers can bypass security controls. The insights into recognising and mitigating these vulnerabilities added depth to my understanding of email security.about interesting tricks on how making changes in headers can result in security bypass. 💡 Unmasking a Hacker: OSINT in Action The session by Emerald Sage was a masterclass on Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT), showcasing how threat investigations are conducted. The practical case study demonstrated how OSINT frameworks can be leveraged for in-depth threat detection and tracking hackers in real-time. 💡 AI Security and Social Engineering The dynamic duo Chantelle Ralevska and Harriet Farlow gave a visually stunning and deeply technical session explored adversarial attacks on AI, from data manipulation and gradient-based attacks to poisoning techniques. They explored the intersection of AI security and social engineering. Their session showcased how OSINT tools are used to exploit vulnerabilities and underscored the need for vigilance in an AI-driven era. It has been such a rewarding experience, from technical insights to networking with like-minded professionals. I can’t wait to apply what I’ve learned and continue growing in this field. Thank you again, Jatin Kumar for your mentorship and continuous support & BSides Melbourne, for such an inspiring conference!

What did 500+ cyber enthusiasts do in Melbourne this past weekend? We were at #BSidesMelbourne2024!!!! both Saturday and Sunday. There were never a dull moment from the eye opening keynote of “The human cost of Digital Threats” ( link - https://lnkd.in/gTV2WbYK) to the exciting closing cyber trivia . I’m definitely heading home with some homework to dive into this week! A huge shoutout to the BSides Melbourne Crew for yet another outstanding event 👏👏 To the CyberSec community—see you all again next week at the AISA CyberCon!

Epic weekend at BSides Melbourne 2024, thank you Lukasz Gogolkiewicz, Kirstin McIntosh, Brett Williams, Vaughan Shanks, and Lidia Giuliano for organising this amazing event. Each year it grows bigger and gets better, can’t wait for next year. #BSidesMelbourne

That's a wrap for BSides Melbourne! ✅ Thank you so much to the entire BSides Melbourne committee, volunteers, sponsors and speakers who contributed to running such an exceptional community event. This event has set the bar for what a community driven cyber security conference should be like. I'll definitely be back again in the future! 🎉 If anyone took photos of me speaking over the last two days I would love to see them, please message me 😊. #bsidesmelb2024 #bsides #security

Well BSides Melbourne is done for 2024 and IMO was officially the best cyber security conference ever. I can now officially confess to being tasked with a secret mission of huge importance - being a scone taste tester and judge. My years of experience definitely came into play today. Excellent work by Jocasta Norman for the best scones! Yum! And then topped off the weekend by winning the draw for the Blackhat Asia ticket - OMG! Bucket list item right there! Once again thank you to the wonderful people organising and running this event. You are amazing people! 🥰