CBI is proud to have sponsored the 2019 edition of Black Hat, sending a full team out to Las Vegas for two days of networking with and learning from the cybersecurity industry’s most influential leaders.
Black Hat delivered at every turn, from hosting guests in our exclusive briefing space, to listening in on presentations from the sharpest hackers in the business, to simply enjoying the city with friends and colleagues.
The CBI Effect in Person
Forget the VIP lounge – it’s all about the CBI lounge! CBI’s sponsorship included an executive briefing space where we had the opportunity to host onsite meetings with 17 key partners, customers and prospects and share the CBI Effect in person. These face-to-face, deep-dive sessions empowered us to trade the kinds of invaluable security insights that are best obtained at a critical-mass type of gathering like Black Hat.
Fully stocked with drinks, snacks and CBI swag, the briefing space even included a classic Pac-Man cabinet for anyone interested in brushing up on their old school video game skills and challenging the high score.
Introduction and Keynote
Black Hat founder Jeff Moss kicked off the 23rdedition of Black Hat (sparkly shoes and all!) with a message of community and communication for the thousands of attendees from 112 different countries.
Yes, it’s truly awe-inspiring to feel at home around a hacker community that is growing rapidly and becoming increasingly diverse and inclusive. But key questions linger. Now that the cybersecurity industry has emerged from the shadows and earned the spotlight, how do we best communicate what cybersecurity truly means in order to drive the best possible outcomes?
Jeff’s introduction addressed these questions and more, also covering the evolving definition of the Internet, consolidation in the space with legal and regulatory implications, and the importance of disrupting your own comfortable viewpoints by talking with peers from around the world.
Dino Dai Zovi, Head of Security at Square’s CashApp, led the official keynote speech with an inspiring talk about coding and culture shifts. With examples from transformative cultural shifts in his own career including his time at Square, Dino left us with three key lessons on driving a generative culture that creates learning instead of blame and opportunity instead of fear:
- Work backwards from the job to be done. Whether it’s learning to write code even if it’s “not your job” or spending quality time talking to customer teams, empathy wins the day.
- Seek and apply leverage, keeping in mind we’re still a small community solving big problems.
- Culture is more powerful than Strategy is more powerful than Tactics.
Dino’s closing words of wisdom before cutting the Black Hat crowd loose: Start with yes. It keeps the conversation going, and that’s how we affect real change and real impact.
Black Hat Briefings
It wouldn’t be an industry conference without some good old fashioned TED Talk-style presentations, right? Black Hat afforded attendees the opportunity to experience the bleeding edge of the cybersecurity space with some of the most industry’s most important hackers.
A wide array of trending topics received heavy emphasis, including zero day vulnerabilities and DDoS attacks, deep fakes, the importance of cyber insurance, essential policy matters like using technology to defend vulnerable or exploited people in society, protecting our elections from foreign intervention, GDPR, the convergence of DevOps and Security, and much more.
A few highlighted briefing sessions we attended (and Tweeted about) include:
- Monsters in the Middleboxes – Tools for Detecting HTTPS Interception
- Hacking for the Greater Good – Empowering Technologists to Strengthen Digital Society
- MITRE ATT&CK – The Play at Home Edition
- Controlled Chaos – The Inevitable Marriage of DevOps and Security
- Attack Surface as a Service
- The Enemy Within – Defending Against Modern Supply Chain Attacks
- DevSecOps – What, Why and How?
- Critical Zero Days Remotely Compromise the Most Popular Real-Time OS
K Thx Bye
Black Hat 2019 was a thrilling experience for Team CBI and for anyone passionate about cybersecurity. We look forward to seeing you all again next year!
