This one time at ShmooCamp … I had an urge to start a blog. Well long story short … I came home after a late night at ShmooCon, setup a blog and posted the following article.

Welcome to the NovaInfosecPortal – Security News, Events, and Resources for Infosec Professionals in NoVA

We’ve been planning to start a site dedicated to information security for a long time but just never got around to doing it. Tonight, however, after the excitement of Saturday at ShmooCon in Washington, DC, we finally decided on a good niche – centralizing security news, events, and resources for infosec professionals in Northern Virginia (NoVA) – and took the first step into making this idea a reality. Enjoy!

Ok … maybe the title was a little too long but with those 66 words I started this site. I actually did end up returning to ShmooCon the following morning but since I had been up until 5:00 AM or so, I obviously missed the first few talks.

Thanks to the WayBack Machine I can even get a snap-shot of what this post actually looked like as you can see above. The first actual snap-shot didn’t show up in the WayBack Machine until the following month on March 26th.

(click to enlarge)

You’ll see some favorites there … mentions of ShmooCon as well as the OWASP DC and CapSecDC meetups. The Sections area on the right still pretty much maps to our current menu. If you would like to navigate the old site, check it out on the WayBack Machine.

History

Over the years we’ve added numerous updates with the goal of helping bring together the growing infosec community. First there were several design updates … thank goodness. Of course being a blog we’ve always had an RSS feed … not sure if anyone uses that or not. At some point Twitter started playing a big role so we created the @novainfosec account. This also started the NovaBloggers feature, where we let the community know of some of our local bloggers.

One of the original features we added was our popular calendar. We started on Google and used it through this January. But we wanted more flexibility and so it was time to roll our own. Two of the improvements included a more customizable iCal feed that you can subscribe to and event comments. We are hoping the comments feature helps form more community interactions in that people can summarize what they thought of the event afterwards.

And of course a huge portion of our content are blog posts. You may remember “paques” from a few years back. She was influential in trying to turn many of my original ideas into reality. We currently have @nathiet‘s standard “Where You Want to Be this Week” (WYWTBTW) and “Top 3 NoVA Infosec Blog Posts of the Week” posts. There were my Grecs’ Infosec Ramblings post, which have since morphed into the Weekly Rewind. Periodically I’ve been known to put out news commentary or some simple how-to’s. Also @judykavuo just started posting commentary on news as well as managing job posts.

We’ve had several external contributors over the years as well. There are too many to mention here but you know who you are. And with permission, we’ve cross-posted numerous articles from some of the local websites. Many of these same individuals not only offered their words but also helped get the word out about the site. On a similar note we also started a localized version of Andrew Hay’s Security D-List Interviews. So far we’ve had two posts but if you’d like to nominate someone let us know. And overall we are always looking for more blog contributors. So if you are interested in putting out a weekly or monthly “column” … or even just a one-off rant … contact us!

Recent Updates & the Future

More recently we’ve been trying to push our content out more to make it accessible elsewhere. We finally updated our FaceBook page to be more than just a placeholder. The Wall includes all our blog posts and tweets and the Calendar pulls in our iCal events feed. Our event listing was also incorporated on DcTechEvents.com. This is another site to not only find our events but also other tech activities around town.

Going forward we have even bigger plans. I’ve thought of many ideas including more community-based offerings such as a mailing list (another one?), a meetup, a forum, an IRC channel, a wiki, etc. Others included a weekly or monthly newsletter or some member-only services (e.g., consolidated list of local CFPs). That’s nice but what really matters is what YOU want. If any of the ideas above look good or if you have other suggestions you’d like to see, please let us know.

We have a small budget and a platform so by letting us know what you want, we can better spend it to help improve the community. And of course we’re always looking for more funding sources (besides my rapidly depleting bank account) so we can offer even more. One way you can help here is to download our Media Kit and pass it along to your company’s marketing/advertising people.

How You Can Help

Lots of people have asked over the years how they could help. Well … all that we ask is that if you find this site useful, review the following suggestions and do as many as you feel are appropriate.

• Subscribe to our RSS or iCal feeds.
• Add summary comments to events you attended.
• Follow @novainfosec.
• Write a blog post if you have an idea that you want to get more exposure.
• Friend/Like our Facebook page and subscribe to that page’s calendar.
• Nominate people for the NovaInfosec D-List.
• Ask to join the NovaInfosec Twits.
• Tell us what else YOU want!
• Download and email our Media Kit onto any contacts you have in your company’s marketing/ad department.
• Contribute a one-time donation or subscribe to be a $2/mo or $20/yr contributor.

To close this post out I wanted to again thank you … the local community … for continuing to support our site through the years. Every once in a while someone will approach me at an event and compliment the site. It’s little things like that that keep me going … that inspire me to continue on through the next 1000 posts.

Looking for a low-key way to connect with local security professionals? If so, the CapSecDC meetup this Wednesday, September 26th, might just be just the meetup for you.

An informal event where you can meet other security professionals without the pressure of traditional security meetups, the CapSecDC meetup is accessible by car and by metro.

If you’d like to learn more about the CapSecDC meetup, continue reading below.

• Who: CapSecDC
• What: Normal Meeting
• When: 08-26, 7:00 PM EST
• Where: Stetson’s Famous Bar & Grill (1610 U St NW; Washington, DC 20009)

For more information on CapSecDC, see its description in our NoVA Meetups section. View our Calendar for a complete list of infosec events in and around the NoVA area. Here is a link to the page with information about this meetup.

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If you’re unable to make it to CapSecDC, why not check out some of the other great infosec meetup groups in the area?

Looking for a low-key way to connect with local security professionals? CapSecDC might just be the event for you.

An informal event where you can meet other security professionals without the pressure of traditional security meetups, the CapSecDC event is accessible by car and by metro.

If you’d like to learn more about the CapSecDC meetup, continue reading below. 

• Who: CapSecDC
• What: Normal Meeting
• When: 07-29, 7:00 PM EST
• Where: Stetson’s Famous Bar & Grill (1610 U St NW; Washington, DC 20009)

For more information on CapSecDC, see its description in our NoVA Meetups section. View our Calendar for a complete list of infosec events in and around the NoVA area. Here is a link to the page with information about this meetup.

o o o o o

If you’re unable to make it to CapSecDC, why not check out some of the other great infosec meetup groups in the area?

If you’re a fan of meetups like CharmSec or the 2600 Group meetups, you might want to give CapSecDC a try.

CapSecDC meetups are low-key gatherings that allow you to meet other security professionals without the pressure of traditional security meetups. We’ve heard that it’s a lot of fun, so be sure to check it out if you can.

If you’d like to learn more about the CapSecDC meetup,  look no further than below.

• Who: CapSecDC
• What: Normal Meeting
• When: 06-25, 7:00 PM EST
• Where: Stetson’s Famous Bar & Grill (1610 U St NW; Washington, DC 20009)

For more information on CapSecDC, see its description in our NoVA Meetups section. View our Calendar for a complete list of infosec events in and around the NoVA area. Here is a link to the page with information about this meetup.

o o o o o

How’s this for some summer reading?

Just a quick reminder that the CapSecDC infosec meetup event is today. For more information about CapSecDC, see its description in our Infosec Meetups section.

View our Calendar for a list of similar infosec events in and around the NoVA area. See our original post for more information about this meetup.

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If you attend this meetup, why not write about it for NovaInfosecPortal? We’re currently looking for some great guest bloggers to feature on the site. If you’re interested, drop us a line, or send us a tweet @grecs.

Good news everyone; the CapSecDC infosec meetup event is on for this Wednesday, April 29th.

If you haven’t been to a CapSecDC meetup before, it’s a low-key event where you can meet other security professionals without the pressure of traditional security meetups.

If you’d like to learn more about the CapSecDC meetup, continue reading below. 

• Who: CapSecDC
• What: Normal Meeting
• When: 04-29, 7:00 PM EST
• Where: Stetson’s Famous Bar & Grill (1610 U St NW; Washington, DC 20009)

For more information on CapSecDC, see its description in our NoVA Meetups section. View our Calendar for a complete list of infosec events in and around the NoVA area. Here is a link to the page with information about this meetup.

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It’s not too late! If you’re looking to get back to the heart of security basics, SANS has the perfect event for you in the form of their Application Security Workshop — What Works? workshop on April 29th. The workshop will cover the best ways to counter common attacks through general know-how, products, services, and configurations. If you’re interested, visit the SANS section of our Help Us Help You page to sign up for this workshop. 

Just a quick reminder that the CapSecDC infosec meetup event is tomorrow. For more information about CapSecDC, see its description in our Infosec Meetups section. View our Calendar for a list of similar infosec events in and around the NoVA area. See our original post for more information about this meetup.

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Keep the local security community going strong by becoming a subscriber of our site. You can also spread the word about NovaInfosecPortal
 by passing this post along to a friend.

For those of you who are unable to make it to Baltimore for the CharmSec meetup on March 25th, there is a CapSecDC infosec meetup event taking place in DC at the same time. (The 25th certainly seems to be a popular day, doesn’t it? The ISSA – Baltimore Chapter meetup is also on the 25th).

For those of you who haven’t beenn to one of the CapSecDC meetups, it’s very similar to a CharmSec meetup; it’s a laid-back meetup where you can meet other professionals in the security field.

If you’d like to learn more about the CapSecDC meetup, continue reading below.

• Who: CapSecDC
• What: Normal Meeting
• When: 03-25, 7:00 PM EST
• Where: Stetson’s Famous Bar & Grill (1610 U St NW; Washington, DC 20009)

For more information on CapSecDC, see its description in our NoVA Meetups section. View our Calendar for a complete list of infosec events in and around the NoVA area. You can also visit the CapSecDC site for more information.

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Keep the local security community going strong by becoming a subscriber of our site. You can also spread the word about NovaInfosecPortal
 by passing this post along to a friend.

Just a quick reminder that the CapSecDC infosec meetup event is tomorrow, January 28th. See our original post for more information. View our Calendar for a complete list of infosec events in and around the NoVA area.

While we already tweeted about it briefly, here is some additional information regarding the upcoming CapSecDC infosec meetup event. The meetup’s at a different site than usual, so be sure to pay close attention to the location that’s provided below.

• Who: CapSecDC
• What: Normal Meeting
• When: 01-28, 7:00 PM EST
• Where: Buffalo Billiards in Dupont Circle (1330 19th Street Washington, D.C)

For more information on CapSecDC, see its description in our NoVA Meetups section. View our Calendar for a complete list of infosec events in and around the NoVA area.