Category: Events

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February 12th, 2021 meeting

DATE:February 12th, 2021
TIME:2:00pm to 4:00pm (PST)
VENUE:Zoom Online meeting
(Please note Zoom link was updated)
RSVP Required – register at Zoom
TOPIC(S):Ransomware, Risk, and Recovery: Is Your DR Strategy Ready for Today’s Threats?
PRESENTER(S):  Sean Deuby (Director of Services, Semperis)

ABSTRACT

Disaster Recovery (DR) strategies have traditionally focused on natural disasters, then expanded into other physical events such as terrorism. Today, cyber weaponization is everywhere, and the “Extinction Event” is a genuine threat with no respect for geographic boundaries.


In 2017 the NotPetya ransomware attack impacted Maersk worldwide in under 10 minutes and cost the company over $300M. The 2018 Winter Olympics were hit by a targeted cyber attack. Ransomware attacks have become commonplace. Cyber risk directly correlates to business risk and cyber disasters strike more frequently with broader impact than their physical counterparts. Thus, modern DR strategies must prioritize cyber scenarios.


Takeaways:
Denial-of-availability malware is now the #1 risk to business operations
Cyber insurance policies are not the magic bullet they position themselves to be
New “cyber-first” DR technologies automate recovery of complex systems, facilitate recovery to the cloud, and eliminate the risk of reinfection from system state and bare-metal backups

BIOGRAPHY

Sean Deuby brings 30 years’ experience in Enterprise IT and Hybrid Identity to his role as Director of Services at Semperis. An original architect and technical leader of Intel Active Directory, Texas Instrument’s Windows NT network, and 15-time MVP alumnus, Sean has been involved with Microsoft identity technology since its inception. His experience as an identity strategy consultant for many Fortune 500 companies gives him a broad perspective on the challenges of today’s identity-centered security. Sean is also an industry journalism veteran; as former technical director for Windows IT Pro, he has over 400 published articles on Active Directory, Azure Active Directory and related security, and Windows Server. He has presented sessions at multiple CIS / Identiverse conferences.

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January 8th, 2021 meeting

DATE:January 8th, 2021
TIME:2:00pm to 4:00pm (PST)
VENUE:Zoom Online meeting
Please obtain passcode to enter meeting from email confirmation
RSVP Required – register at Zoom
TOPIC(S):Learning through law:
Building a better defense by studying real legal cases
PRESENTER(S):  Chester Wisniewski (Principal Research Scientist, Sophos)

ABSTRACT

While we are inundated by headlines of cybercriminals hacking everything that moves, we seldom have the opportunity to learn how they go about their trade craft. Often stories are distilled to simple things like “didn’t patch” or “phishing attack”. The complexities of real life events are far deeper. We can use the openness of our legal system to discover how these attacks actually unfolded for those who we are fortunate enough to apprehend, or at least charge with a crime. This talk will analyze a dozen recent indictments and US Grand Jury documents to learn the tricks, tools and techniques used in some of the most well known recent cyber attacks.

BIOGRAPHY

Chester Wisniewski is a principal research scientist at Sophos. With more than 25 years of professional experience, his interest in security and privacy first peaked while learning to hack from bulletin board text files in the 1980s, and has since been a lifelong pursuit. 


Chester analyzes the massive amounts of attack data gathered by SophosLabs to distill and share relevant information in an effort to improve the industry’s understanding of evolving threats, attacker behaviors and effective security defenses. He’s helped organizations design enterprise-scale defense strategies, served as the primary technical lead on architecting Sophos’ first email security appliance, and consulted on security planning with some of the largest global brands.


As a former President of the Vancouver SecSIG he is grateful for no longer being responsible for the meetings, but excited to continue to share and contribute to the security knowledge of our community. You may recognize me from my appearances on Global News(https://t.co/VWNBOja8Iv), CBC and CTV if you are old enough to still watch news on a TV.

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December 11th, 2020 meeting

DATE:December 11th, 2020
TIME:2:00pm to 4:00pm (PST)
VENUE:Zoom Online meeting
Please obtain passcode to enter meeting from email confirmation
RSVP Required – register at Zoom
TOPIC(S):Differential Privacy
PRESENTER(S):  Robert Slade (M. Sc.)

ABSTRACT

Differential privacy is a relatively recent topic, although it is an amalgam of well-known, and long utilized, concepts. Oddly, outside of academic circles, it was almost unknown until Apple made a big deal of it in an announcement in 2016. Differential privacy is, however, the “quantitative risk analysis” of privacy, which is why it has such important points to make to the field of privacy, and why almost nobody is using it. (Including, mostly, Apple.)

OK, CISSP question time:

Which privacy law does differential privacy support?

a. British law
b. Chinese law
c. EU law
d. US law

You want a clue?  OK, some initial discussion, then:

a. British privacy law is still primarily based on the original privacy directives, and
is mostly concerned with what data you can collect, and for how long, and how
accurate you have to be.
b. Yeah, I needed a good laugh, too.  But China *does* have a privacy law, and it
pretends to be compatible with the original privacy directives.
c. Well, GDPR is *mostly* just the original privacy directives, but the new
accountability directive *might* have to do with how well you protect what you
*have* collected …
d. OK, I often say the the US doesn’t have any privacy laws, but they do.  Those
are primarily concerned with how much you can sue when people disclose your
data.

For the final answer, attend the December 11th meeting on the topic of
differential privacy.

BIOGRAPHY

Robert Slade has been stuck inside for six months with nothing to do but study
the latest security and privacy buzzwords.  More information than anyone would
want to know about him is available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Slade
(and he doesn’t particularly care if you know that).

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Friday, November 13, 2020 2pm to 4pm

Fri, Oct. 9, 2020 2:00pm — 4:00pm

DATE:November 13th, 2020
TIME:2:00pm to 4:00pm (PST)
VENUE:Zoom Online meeting
Please obtain passcode to enter meeting from email confirmation
RSVP Required – register at Zoom
TOPIC(S):Cyberwarfare: The New “Colder” War
PRESENTER(S):  Kevin Murphy
Agenda:

2:00 pm – 2:15 pm  Welcome and announcements
2:15 pm – 2:45 pm  Featured Presentation
2:45 pm – 3:15 pm  Break
3:15 pm – 3:45 pm  Featured Presentation
3:45 pm – 4:00 pm  Q&A 

Abstract:  Is Cyberwarfare actually the next World War?  Modern cybersecurity threats have evolved into very effective disinformation campaigns and destructive ransomware. What can we collectively do to protect ourselves, our business, and our democratic institutions? Hint: the solution is more than just technology.

Biography:
Kevin was the VP of Cybersecurity Operations and Governance at IOActive.com, a retired US Air Force intelligence officer, and the former Director of Windows Security Architecture at Microsoft with over 25 years of experience in threat intelligence and information security. Kevin holds the CISM, CISSP, and CGEIT security certifications.

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October 9th, 2020 meeting

Fri, Oct. 9, 2020 2:00pm — 4:00pm

DATE:October 9th, 2020
TIME:2:00pm to 4:00pm (PDT)
VENUE:Zoom Online meeting
Please obtain passcode to enter meeting from email confirmation
RSVP Required – register at Zoom
TOPIC(S):Threat landscape 2020: A deep dive on the threats we face and how we can successfully combat cybercrime
PRESENTER(S):  Chester Wisniewski (Principal Research Scientist, Sophos)

 A portion of this meeting will be dedicated to the AGM. Where possible we will use Zoom polls.

ABSTRACT

Part 1 – Know thy enemy.
There is no point in defending against attackers that aren’t there. The inverse could be worse, being unprepared for what is out there. The pace of change by cybercriminals is driven by money, which means it never stands still for long.


Part 2 – How we can use COVID-19 to our advantage.
Most security minded people are in a constant struggle to modernize and justify budgets to effectively train their staff and make modern efficient tools available. COVID-19 not only changed the threatscape, it has presented opportunities to IT security teams to up their game.


Part 3 – Targeted ransom deep dive.
These attacks have achieved unbelievable success and profit for the skilled criminals behind them. I will walk you through a typical attack and demonstrate the TTPs and cleverness that goes into hamstringing their victims.


Part 4 –  Parting defensive thoughts.
How we view our networks and the people who defend them is evolving with the threats. Many organizations who make headlines after being victimized have not evolved and sometimes even been culled from the herd. I will wrap up providing my advice on how to modernize your approach to protecting your data.

BIOGRAPHY

Chester Wisniewski is a principal research scientist at Sophos. With more than 25 years of professional experience, his interest in security and privacy first peaked while learning to hack from bulletin board text files in the 1980s, and has since been a lifelong pursuit.


Chester analyzes the massive amounts of attack data gathered by SophosLabs to distill and share relevant information in an effort to improve the industry’s understanding of evolving threats, attacker behaviors and effective security defenses. He’s helped organizations design enterprise-scale defense strategies, served as the primary technical lead on architecting Sophos’ first email security appliance, and consulted on security planning with some of the largest global brands.


As a former President of the Vancouver SecSIG he is grateful for no longer being responsible for the meetings, but excited to continue to share and contribute to the security knowledge of our community. You may recognize me from my appearances on Global News, CBC and CTV if you are old enough to still watch news on a TV.

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Friday, September 11, 2020 2pm to 4pm, GM Meeting Notice (Virtual)

DATE:September 11th, 2020
TIME:2:00pm to 4:00pm (PST)
VENUE:Zoom Online meeting
Please obtain passcode to enter meeting from email confirmation
RSVP Required – register at Zoom
TOPIC(S):Homomorphic Encryption
PRESENTER(S):  Rob Slade
No Eventbrite registration required – register using the Zoom link. Please check your email for the Zoom password after you register. 

A portion of this meeting will be dedicated to the AGM. To confirm executive positions and any other decisions we will be using Zoom polls where possible.

Abstract:  Recently security operations have become very excited about homomorphic encryption. It seems to be the latest “magic” security technology that will solve all our problems, but I don’t think we’ve really provided a good outline of what it is, and, particularly, what it can’t do.

This presentation will outline the basic concepts, note some specific forms and applications, and point out the various factors for use or consideration.

A longer outline of this talk is available at https://community.isc2.org/t5/T/H/m-p/26922/highlight/true#M1683

Biography:
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https://cryptii.com/pipes/rot13

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August 14th, 2020 Meeting

DATE:August 14th, 2020
TIME:2:00pm to 4:00pm (PST)
VENUE:Zoom Online meeting
Please obtain passcode to enter meeting from email confirmation
RSVP Required – register at Zoom
TOPIC(S):The Clutter that’s Choking AppSec
PRESENTER(S):  Rahul Raghavan (Co-Founder and Chief Evangelist, we45)

ABSTRACT

Increasingly shorter agile development sprints and mandatory security
assessments are putting pressure on product teams to deliver secure applications faster
than ever. Further, inorganic adoption of security tooling sometimes creates information
overload that does more harm than good.


What’s going wrong:
• Results from SAST, DAST and SCA tools create large vulnerability data sets that are
difficult to act upon.
• Automated scan results from security tools are replete with false positives and duplicate
entries that make remediation troublesome.
• Manual methods of triaging vulnerability data sets are inefficient and lower productivity.
• Improper vulnerability management increases friction between security and engineering
teams.

What the audience will glean from this talk:
• How automated methods of vulnerability correlation and de-duplication can significantly
reduce your AppSec testing time.
• How to effectively integrate vulnerability remediation with the engineering workflow.
• Understand the basic anatomy of a vulnerability to effectively prioritise and fix security bugs faster and better!


Why should they care:
• Without a change in approach, application security professionals and engineering teams
will continue to delay development schedules and product release dates, or risk releasing a
product that is not entirely secure.


Who should attend:
• Security professionals who face problems managing vulnerabilities.
• Engineering teams who find the current vulnerability remediation workflow problematic.
• CISO’s who want to lay down a mature and efficient AppSec Program.

BIOGRAPHY

Rahul is the Co-Founder and Chief Evangelist at we45.


The sheer pervasiveness of applications, their associated software engineering process and therefore the variance of application security quotient across software teams is what drives Rahul’s primary role as an AppSec Advocate at we45.


Having worked on both the building and breaking sides of product engineering, Rahul
appreciates both the constraints and the opportunities of imbibing security within the
software lifecycle. This understanding created a natural segue for we45’s custom security
solution engineering and enhanced AppSec service delivery models for its global customers.


As an active DevSecOps Marketer, Rahul works closely with the offices of CTOs and CIOs
in the setting up of cross functional skill building and collaboration models between
engineering, QA and security teams to build and manage software security maturity
frameworks.


Rahul is Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA) and is a regular speaker at global
conferences, seminars and meetup groups on the following topic areas:
1. Application Security Automation and DevSecOps
2. AppSec Tooling
3. Threat Modeling in Agile Engineering
4. QA: Security Mapping
5. Automation ROI Modelling
6. AWS Security
7. Secure Software Maturity Models

 RSVP Required – register at Zoom

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July 10th, 2020 Meeting

DATE:July 10th, 2020
TIME:2:00pm to 4:00pm (PST)
VENUE:Zoom Online meeting
Please obtain passcode to enter meeting from email confirmation
RSVP Required – register at Zoom
TOPIC(S):The business of measuring security
PRESENTER(S):  Gary Hinson

ABSTRACT

Although quantifying things is an essential part of rational management, measuring is particularly challenging in the arcane field of information risk and security. Gary will be sharing his Hinson tips on selecting security metrics that work, both for infosec pros like us and for the businesses we serve. Pull up a chair and put your brain in gear. Audience participation is not merely permitted: it’s encouraged.

BIOGRAPHY

Gary Hinson lives at the end of the world, not only down under in New Zealand, but so far off the beaten track that nobody can find him. (Talk about security by obscurity.) Despite this, he advises international companies on information risk and security matters, providing excellent policies, awareness materials and strategies. He is a long-time active member of the CISSPforum, a Certified Usual Suspect. He has a long-abiding interest in the ISO27k standards, running the ISO27k Forum supporting 4,000 fellow ISO addicts. He has written the book (well, a book, anyway) on security metrics which is very pragmatic. (All will become clear during the session.) (Well OK, maybe not all but he’ll do his best)

RSVP Required – register at Zoom

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CANCELLED – April 2020 Education Session

PLEASE NOTE THE MARCH MEETING WAS CANCELLED, WE ARE TENTATIVELY MOVING OUR SPEAKER’S TALK TO APRIL INSTEAD. WE WILL KEEP YOU POSTED IF THERE ARE ANY FURTHER CHANGES.
 
Presented by Vancouver Security SIG, (ISC)² Vancouver Chapter, and ISSA Vancouver Chapter
 
Friday April 17th from 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM (PST)

Featured Presentation Topic(s): Homomorphic Encryption

Speaker(s): Rob Slade (M. Sc.)

Continue reading “CANCELLED – April 2020 Education Session”
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CANCELLED – March 13th, 2020 meeting

DATE:March 13th, 2020
TIME:2:00pm to 4:00pm (PST)
VENUE:KPMG Campus – 11th floor
777 Dunsmuir Street, V7Y 1K3, Vancouver B.C.Please be punctual for entry to the meeting room
RSVP Required – register at Eventbrite
TOPIC(S):Homomorphic Encryption 
PRESENTER(S):  Rob Slade (M. Sc.)

PLEASE NOTE THE MARCH MEETING WAS CANCELLED, WE ARE TENTATIVELY MOVING OUR SPEAKER’S TALK TO APRIL INSTEAD. WE WILL KEEP YOU POSTED IF THERE ARE ANY FURTHER CHANGES.
Continue reading “CANCELLED – March 13th, 2020 meeting”
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Jan. 10, 2020 2:00pm — 4:00pm

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DATE January 10th, 2020
TIME 2:00pm to 4:00pm (PST)
VENUE KPMG Campus – 11th floor
777 Dunsmuir Street, V7Y 1K3, Vancouver B.C.
Please be punctual for entry to the meeting room
RSVP Required – register at Eventbrite
TOPIC Business Transformation through Enterprise Security – powered by Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
PRESENTER Deepak Ranjan Rout (Executive Security Advisor, Microsoft)
Continue reading “Jan. 10, 2020 2:00pm — 4:00pm”
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Dec. 13, 2019 2:00pm — 4:00pm

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DATE:November 8th, 2019
TIME:2:00pm to 4:00pm (PST)
VENUE:KPMG Campus – 11th floor
777 Dunsmuir Street, V7Y 1K3, Vancouver B.C.Please be punctual for entry to the meeting room
RSVP Required – register at Eventbrite
TOPIC(S):Evolution of payments security and threat landscape. How PCI standards are evolving to support security needs of the industry
PRESENTER(S):  Emma Sutcliffe (Senior Director, Data Security Standards, PCI Security Standards Council)
Continue reading “Dec. 13, 2019 2:00pm — 4:00pm”