Opening Words

Hello everybody. Welcome. The time has finally come for us to get together. It's Besides Tel Aviv 2025, the winter edition. And you know, it's the multiverse comic book theme in an alternate universe. We started on time. In this universe, things are going to run uh according to a new schedule. So, we really appreciate your patience. I'm so excited to be with you here today. Uh, for those who don't know me, this is my 10th year running and hosting Besides Tel Aviv. Thank you so much. You can literally hear my hair turning gray as I'm running this event for so many years. And now this year, we have so many amazing people, the next generation. So, I want to tell you a

little bit about our event, what you can expect today and what's going to happen on this stage and all across our multiple universes because we did so many things this year to make our event extra special. We know that we tried together in the summer in June and we couldn't because of the war. So, we're so happy and grateful to be here with everybody today and with everybody who's joining us remotely as well. So the theme that we chose this year is that everything is possible in alternate realities in a multiverse quantum world. We can do anything even make besides happen when there's an incredible storm going on outside. When everybody's under different challenges, we can make it all

work out. By the way, did you notice um somebody on the team said uh when there when there the weather in Tel Aviv is sunny but there's a chance of rockets, people still make reservations to go out to a restaurant, but when the forecast says rain, everybody stays at home. So, uh thanks to everybody who made the effort to come out here to be with us today. And of course, Bites Tel Aviv would not be possible without the support, the generous support of all of our sponsors. As you know, Bites Tel Aviv runs as a completely nonprofit association. All of our event proceeds go directly into the production and it is our generous sponsors that have

helped us make this event possible. So, thank you and we will mention them again and again. For those of you who like to share posts on Instagram, Facebook X or any other social media network of your choice, this is the Wi-Fi password. I know some of you have been asking me, please note the password is case sensitive. Feel free to take a photo so that you can have that and share. We want you to take photos and share except when we have special speakers. So today, one of the special surprises that we have is an opening keynote that is not going to be recorded, that is not going to be photographed, and we will kindly

ask all of you not to take any photos or videos. So it's really one of those you have to be here in this universe to catch that talk. And that is the opening speaker that I will invite to the stage in just a few moments. But first, let's make sure that you've got all of the social media profiles so you can tag us, post us, be friends with us, make sure that you get updates to our future events. And so many of you have reached out to us this year to ask how can I get involved with Bides. So you should know this is a community effort. There is over a hundred people who worked on this

event today from the speakers to the talk reviewers, the CFP reviewers to the CTF, the volunteers, the organizers and you can be one of our team members. Of course, you can support our event as a sponsor. So, if you want to get in touch with us, do it through the social media channels or of course you can always send us a message and you can always send me a fax. Uh you can find my fax number up there. No, of course I'm joking. I don't use the facts anymore. We're in the 21st century. Okay, that joke worked a lot better when I was in the other universe earlier. I'll just go back there and um and try the joke

again. So, for those who don't know me yet, I'm Karen Elazari. Very nice to meet you. I've been running and hosting Bides for 10 years. I'm known online as K3 R3N3. You can always find me on Instagram, on X, or any other social networks if you want to send me messages. And I'll be here throughout the day to host the event, to moderate, and to invite our amazing speakers to the stage. Now, I want to get to know you a little bit better. So, now we're going to do a little bit of a stretching exercise. I want to know who is here for the first time. Who's here for the first time? Okay. And who is here for the

first time ever at a besides event? Okay, quite a few of you, quite a lot. So, this is amazing. This is one of the reasons that we do besides. So, what is security besides anyway? Let me give you a very quick preview. Basically almost 15 years ago, a group of hackers got together and they felt like the mainstage conferences like RSA and Black Hat and even Defcon were getting too big and they weren't really seeing themselves and their content and their ideas represented on these big stages. So they got together and they created an alternative community gathering called security bsides. The first security bsides was an alternative event taking place in Las Vegas during the same week

as black hat and defcon. But since then bsides has become a global phenomena and now we are very proud to be one of the biggest bides in the world. one of the longest running Baines in the world. Part of this incredible global network. There are now security besides events in every continent in so many parts of the world. Bringing security research content and opportunities to people in the local communities where researchers live and work. So we don't all have to go to Las Vegas unless we really enjoy the weather. So in 2016 we started besides Tel a Viv right here at Tel Aviv University and it was um not in this big room but in a smaller room. Okay. Let me

show you that photo. Aha. Yes. So a little bit of history. In 2016, we started besides Tel Aviv in uh a small room across the campus and it was packed and it showed us the community loves to gather together to share ideas that there are so many people that have stories to share and like I mentioned the team is growing every year. We've got more and more team members. We've got more and more people who register. Incredible speakers across the main stage and three villages. three villages, the hardware hacking village, the AI hacking village and the bug bounty hacking village. And of course, we have amazing people who submit their talks through our call for papers

process. So this is one of the things that differentiate besides events and that all of the talks are selected and suggested by the community. There are no sponsored talks and this is what makes Bside so unique and we keep it that way. And of course, we have our incredible sponsors that support our event without getting their speakers on stage and our amazing partners like Tel Aviv University. And our event would not be possible without the volunteers who give their precious time and passion. So, if you're here sitting in the room enjoying the content, enjoying all of the activities, the incredible CTF, the speakers, think about the hours and days that people spent to make all of this

possible for all of you. And if you want to contribute, if you want to give back to the community, you can do that as well. Now, this is the schedule in a glance. I know we're a little bit late, but we're going to catch up, I'm sure, and we're going to just switch over to an alternate universe where the timeline runs a lot faster. And uh we have our main stage schedule, but we also have our amazing villages. So, please make sure you check them out, you can walk around, you can check all the different talks uh here on this stage. Right after my opening talk, we're going to have our amazing opening keynote, which you can't

see anywhere else. So, it will not be recorded. So, if you want to catch that, you should definitely stay here. But I want to encourage you to sample all of the amazing content the community has prepared throughout this incredible multiple universe of possibilities from the hardware hacking village to the bug bounty village to of course the AI hacking village which has incredible content. and all of the people, the speakers came from around the world and locally to share their ideas with you. Now, as I mentioned, our event would not be possible without the generous support. So, I'd like to thank our gold sponsor, Teneel, who's also been a supporting partner for Bides globally for so many years. So, thank you,

Teneal, for your support. Thank you. Yes. Thank you to the Heron AI security initiative which is a new organization that have really made an impact in the last year here in Israel and globally. Thank you Heron for your support. Yes, thank you. We've got the amazing Security Joe's who are a returning sponsor for us. Thank you security Joe's for setting up our chill out zone. They're going to have a hot cider and cool content and drinks. So definitely check out the chill out zone and of course we have our bronze sponsor Prime security uh who just recently announced a big funding round. So congratulations to Prime and thank you Prime again for supporting us and we

have Project Discovery who are supporting the bug bounty village. Now, I wouldn't be here on this stage without the great people of Tel Aviv University, the Tel Aviv Cyber Week, who have made our event possible year after year for 10 years. So, thank you, Tel Aviv University. Please give it up to them. If you enjoy coming here to this event, I also want to give a quick shout out to our community partners, the Leading Cyber Ladies Initiative and the Hackarot organization. These are two initiatives that are all about enabling and empowering women in cyber security. Leading cyber ladies is a global community for women in cyber security and hacker.org is the initiative to bring more women

into their first job in the industry, the entry level into the industry. NOW BEFORE I GIVE UP THE stage for our opening speaker, there are some more important announcements I have to make. So this is our code of conduct and every one of you who registered for a ticket agreed. So I hope you read it and if you haven't, you're still committed to this code of conduct and we're going to make sure that everybody feels welcome and at home in our event. We want to make sure everybody is comfortable and happy here. And one more thing, the amazing team that has made this event possible. And we'll ALL BE HERE ON stage later today. So you'll get a chance to meet

everybody, but I just want to show you some of their smiling faces. Some people who've been doing it for 10 years like me and some new people who have joined us this year. So really our team is growing each and every year. And these are just uh the the names of some of our amazing volunteers. So really it takes a village to bring a multiverse of content to the stage. Speaking about the stage, our content was selected by this incredible group of elite security researchers from Israel and globally. Some of them also sit on the review boards for the most prestigious conferences in our industry. So if you think you can impress these people, you

should submit your talk for next year. And if you've already been there, done that, maybe you should join our team and help us make next year's event even better. So, please remember throughout the day, our event is created by the community for the community. If you enjoy it, great. Let us know. If you didn't like something, you can make it better by joining us next year.