SANS@Night

My spouse was kind enough to request that I get a badge so that I could attend some SANS@night presentations.  I've only been to two, because there are many of them that my spouse would like to attend, and someone has to watch the kids.

The first one that I attended was a SANS WIT presentation.  Their hash tag is #SANS_WIT.  It was a networking event for women to meet other women in technology, and to learn about SANS programs that may help women.  I can't discuss specifically what was in the presentation, but suffice it to say, if you are a woman, interested in the IT field, you may want to attend one of these presentations.  I felt awkward.  I'm a stay at home mom listening to ladies say, "I'm the Chief Security Officer at ...". They asked what I did.  I feel like I probably sounded like a country bumpkin.  "I'm just a stay at home mom who has done a couple consulting/contract jobs from home, and I do pen-testing/digital forensics challenges for fun."  I told them that I was invited to an invite only cyber camp in my state.  It didn't help that I had recently lost some weight, so I was wearing pants and a shirt that was hanging off of me.  Those were my issues, though, not the other ladies.  They seemed like nice people.

The second one was Securing Your Kids.  Most of the information was common sense practices that most people would do, but there were some insightful ideas given by other parents, so it may be worth attending.  I was tempted to skip this one and attend more technical presentations.