Opening Address

[Music] welcome everyone to the very first bides jobber we're thrilled to be part of this Global movement dedicated to cyber security knowledge sharing what is bides bides is all about Community it's a volunteer-driven sponsor supported platform where cyber Security Professionals enthusiasts and thought leaders come together to expand the spectrum of conversation in cyber security as digital threats grow more sophisticated the world faces a critical shortage of skilled cybercity professionals especially here in South Africa bides plays a vital role in addressing this Gap by fostering talent and inspiring a new generation of cyber Security Experts bides started in 2009 in Las Vegas when some amazing speakers were rejected from a mainstream conference not due to lack of quality

but rather a lack of available space and time born from a small gathering at someone's house in 2009 bides exploded onto the global scene just a year later hosting events in London and Berlin since then the movement has gained incredible momentum by 2011 over 20 bsides events were happening across the globe spanning the US Europe India South Africa and Australia the following years saw an explosion of new chapters in Colombia Quebec Perth Budapest and countless others joining the community last year alone there were over 130 events and bides now has events across a staggering 242 cities in 62 countries just yesterday bides celebrated a Monumental Milestone the 1,000th bides event held simultaneously across the US

UK and Mexico a true Testament to the power of community As We Gather here today for a day packed with great talks remember to make new connections spark conversations share ideas and let's make bides jobber an unforgettable event besides jobber where learning growth and Community come together good morning joerg can I uh is anyone in here anyone it's very dark sorry just thank you you're helping warm me up here um yeah welcome to drberg uh besides drberg this is the first bides joerg event which we're very excited to be hosting here um thank you all for coming my name is Michael I'm one of the organizers and yeah I'm just here to say hello and good morning and

mostly reiterate what was in the the video before so just a little bit of background I know for a lot of people this is the first bides um they may have attended you might not know what this is um it was explained a little bit in the video but essentially mainstream hacker conferences got more and more popular um and it was born out of essentially a need for an overflow too many good talks and not enough space at the conferences not a lack of quality but just a lack of time and uh platform for it but what's super cool about bides is that it's kind of grown from this overflow thing to its own thing it's not in the same Spirit as

these mainstream uh hacker conferences but rather it's a community event that's hosted by the community for the community and yeah I think we try to embody that Spirit but it's just clearly been a popular thing because everybody seems to be doing it now um yeah main thing is to grow the community to uh encourage networking and uh you know spreading new ideas sharing knowledge that kind of thing and everybody who has um been here setting up from the early hours and from yesterday evening everyone is volunteer the organizers are volunteers it's a nonprofit that we're not making money out of this um so yeah it really is a labor of love that you're seeing here

today um there have been a thousand sides this is 1003 I think if you count yesterday we can kind of say we were the thousandth as well but yeah uh it it really has spread in the short time that it's been around since 2009 which isn't that long um 20 20111 is when the first Cape Town bides started and this is kind of the sister conference to that um yeah as we said earlier it's the uh yesterday was the thousandth besides event which was a really uh important Milestone and it's kind of Testament to the success of the platform and that it's been adopted and enjoyed by the people who attend it because without attendees and without people speaking we

don't have a conference so this wouldn't happen unless people were sort of buying into the idea so yeah really excited that this is the first one in Johannesburg and yeah excited to see the um talks that are are to come so Som house keeping stuff um there are some stickers on the to put on your badge you can peel them off as uh as you as you feel they um apply to you hex coffee for example if you have been part of the hex coffee community events stick that on there maybe connect with some people who um know about that and ask questions if you see somebody um with that badge sticker on their badge

um fire evacuation should there be fire evacuation everyone is to assemble outside um we don't expect to have any drills today so if you know if the alarms go off please please go out in an orderly fashion um yeah bathrooms are clearly marked there's one at the back and then some at the front easy to find t-shirt colors there's a couple blue t-shirts are organizers if you have specific questions about the event you can come to us otherwise volunteers are in Gray um and then black shirts are for all the other people that's basically it so if you have questions feel free to approach a volunteer or an organizer and we will point you in the right

direction the schedule can be found in a QR code on the back of your badge there have been some small changes so please just check that if you had any talks you specifically want to attend just to make sure that they haven't change times the live schedule on the badge QR code is the current version um there's two talks across two tracks this room is for track one and track two is across the way um there are banners showing you where to go for that um and then also when you're entering and exiting the room I understand especially with the two tracks sometimes you might be coming in just after a track's uh started or in the middle of a

uh a talk just please make sure that you consider it and sort of enter quietly pretend it's a red team and if you make a noise the blue team's going to come and get you um yeah and then we do have a code of conduct it's on the website it was implicitly accepted by attending so thanks for that um the rule is basically simple be respectful be courteous uh just don't be a d just be just be lacer um at the end of the event which is about HST 5 we having an Afterparty in the front of the venue there will be pizzas and drinks for everybody who is able to and would like to stay and

network and have some food so please stick around for that um at the end of the event I'm sorry about this I know we all hate these emails but we've incentivized it so we're going to be asking for feedback there is no obligation to respond but if you do we are giving out gift vouchers to people who give positive and constructive feedback um as well as one random person who just filled out the form so you don't even have to do a good job just fill out the feedback and you might win something which is quite exciting oo look vouchers for everything then lastly but not leastly our sponsors I just wanted to give a special word of

thanks to all of our sponsors by name in particular deoe who came at the 11th Hour not not of their fault but um they really did save the day um it's a long story but thank you Deo for being our Platinum sponsor and making this this possible we may not have had a conference without a platinum sponsor so we're very grateful um our gold sponsors elastic and Trend um you'll see banners and people in merch all over the place um then our silver sponsors t space thanks snur mbius MWR enclose dark rore and km SEC all of you thank you very much for for sponsoring and our bronze sponsors no before preventi and orange cyber defense who are also our coffee

sponsors so if you enjoyed a coffee this morning you can say thank you to someone who looks like they come from Orange cyber defense I don't know how you'll figure that out but if you find them let them know um and then lastly our bag sponsor rapid 7 um for sponsoring that so yeah without our sponsors again this is a nonprofit thing the ticket sales cover some of the cost of running this event but not everything it would not be doable unless or as exciting or as cool or have swag or any of these things without sponsors so on a base level they make as possible but they also make it great so just genuine thanks to our sponsors for for

um yeah for sponsoring and helping make this a thing um yeah ticket prices also would have had to be much higher if we didn't have sponsors so you can thank them for that if you've been to a cyber security conference that's not Community oriented in South Africa you will know that this is not the normal price of tickets um yeah which also keeps it accessible makes it possible for people to attend who might have not so that's awesome and now I would like to hand over to sames from Dee um to give a brief opening message followed by the keynote from Dominic white thank you very much yeah I love it when the tech works

that's morning everybody it's great to see you I was a bit concerned on a Saturday morning after hectic Friday where we make it but glad we all here um thank you for coming thank you for for participating thank you for whether you sponsor ing or you bought a ticket it's great to have you uh my name is Sam R uh I lead the Africa cyber business for Delight I've been in the Cyber business in sou Africa for about 24 years and the events of yesterday remind me a lot of cod rad not Peta I love you anybody remember those yeah yeah it's weird weird you live long enough you get to see history repeat itself right um when you go to

work on a Thursday and you come back home on a Tuesday because somebody decided to do some fun stuff on your network so you know I think that the the events of yesterday and before we get into that maybe I just take a step back you know the events of yesterday reminded me of why I'm in cyber because the common question I get asked you know after 24 years is why the hell are you still doing this you know I can't keep a cell phone contract for two years before being bored of the damn thing you know I struggle looking at my wife every morning how do you do this for 24 years you know it's very hard to

keep at something for 24 years right and I think that's why I tell people cyber is not a it's not a profession it's not a job it's almost like a calling and and you find your Niche you like the stuff you enjoy you evolve through every different role it's what you make of it and it it brings immense fulfillment so when Jared said You know guys we're looking for a sponsor please could you you know have a look at this and let us know and listening to the and having known about bsides for a while the purpose of bides really resonated with me personally cuz I signed the checks but also you know with Del as an

organization being a Purpose Driven organization and also helped me reflect on what we're talking about you know from a cyber perspective it started off at securing computers have you patched your stuff have you done the things on the checklist have you filled your audit findings right when you get it right no one cares no one notices When It Go was wrong it is 15minute updates on X and on every LinkedIn site and every commentator has an opinion on Cyber and every man on his dog wants to cash in on their 15 minutes of fame right and whether they know what they're talking about or not is immaterial so from a cyber perspective as a fraternity and this comes back to

what we're doing as bsides and together in this room we have to look at ourselves in the completeness of what our role is when you go to work in the morning you know what is the purpose of today is it to make the auditor happy is it to make my boss happy is it to earn the paycheck you know why why am I doing this and try to lead every day with a a slight movement towards a Purpose Driven fulfillment and I found that that has kept me well employed for 24 years but it's also brought immense fulfillment in terms of what it is that I that I do uh and I I'm conscious of time this is not

a full talk but the other bit that we're going to see a lot of today is um marketing I I saw an AI driven Mouse guys I not sure what the hell that even is but there it is you know so so in cyber you know when I was when I was a ceso I I always remark if I had to take every vendor's conversation and there's always those guys that just popped up on LinkedIn hey how's it bud haven't se I hate being called Bud first of all hey bud haven't seen you in a long time why I have a coffee sure if I had to answer every one of those it would have been 200 meetings in

the year right who the hell has time for that so again you know when you looking at your environment when you're looking at what you're trying to achieve it's very easy to get sidetracked and distracted by every single moving part and marketing buzzword Etc but if you're focused on what it is that you're trying to achieve what are your goals what does good look like you know how do you be successful uccessful as a cyber person what brings you Joy and fulfillment it's very easy to get past all the marketing and kind of focus on real Clarity of what it is otherwi you could spend a lot of time doing a lot of stuff and then get hacked to Pieces by guys

like Dom and they'll be smiling all the way to the bank to say ah not a successful pen TST you know all the vendors in the world won't help you solve cyber if you don't do it properly and final slide I promise this is not a meeting about a meeting meting this is not a meeting of meetings as we said this is community what is community it's not all of us just sitting together in this room Community is all of us interacting and engaging and learning from each other so I challenge you guys today don't just arrive and be participants go and make friends I know it's hard you know I also like talking to my laptop more than my

wife but anyway that's life so you you you know I challenge you go and find somebody you've you don't know you've never seen this person in your life go have a conversation we all have one thing in common we're all cyber people cuz we're here so you've got one thing to talk about right and just just have strike up a conversation have a chat keep in touch you know make it your goal to just keep in touch and build those networks if every one of us in this room and it's probably about 150 to 200 of us do this my math is terrible but there'll be a lot of connections I can tell you that

and chances are you will have a contact in the industry that as he moves through his career and as he progresses you can keep in touch with bounce ideas of get out of the group think and who knows maybe you have some lifelong mutually beneficial meet you know relationship or at the very least you'll have a good chat so give it a shot there's nothing to lose everything to gain and and most of all you know enjoy yourself today have fun ask questions you know there's no bosses around we don't have kpis we don't have scorecards just go out meet people have fun and engage interact ask people also don't just agree with everything you

hear you know if there's something that's blatantly challenge it in a respectful way say you know I've seen something different how do I reconcile my experience with what you're seeing and um yeah thanks guys looking forward to the engagement looking forward to the chats and uh we'll see you out there later on Cheers [Applause]