No, not August, actually. It comes every year and it would be a bit awkward to swear off of August. Imagine me having to basically go into some sort of hibernation for 31 days.
What I swore I’d never do is go to Las Vegas for the crazy security festival that is Black Hat, DefCon and BSidesLV. At most, I declared many times, I could see myself sending some of my staff. After all, there are important things at these events. Things that a good security program needs to know about, account for, build into their planning and capabilities.
However … for a Security Executive, BlackHat (and RSA, for that matter) is really about vendors getting access to you, marketing, booths, evening events and dinners, etc. Honestly, there’s no good reason why I needed to go to Vegas for that kind of thing. And especially not using my company’s money to do it. If I want to go to Vegas for parties, dinners, cigars, gambling … well, I’ll do it with my wife and have a lot more fun.
Well, never say never. As a leader in a security technology firm, I have to go to BlackHat. It’s now my job.
So, to all my security friends who thought they’d never see me in Vegas, in August, I say …. See you there!
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Oh, and yes RSnake and Corman, I was deep in conversation with Core Security when you two were trying to convince me to go to DefCon at the Gartner Summit in 2013. So, I pretty much already knew I’d be there … but it was fun having you guys try and convince me … yet again …. 😉
