Where do you want to be this week? Now you’ll always know with our “Where You Want to Be This Week” feature, which will tell you about infosec meetups happening in your local area as of Sunday night. If you would like your event listed in our Calendar and in this post, contact us or mention it to @grecs on Twitter.

No meetup scheduled for this week, and for those who would like to plan ahead, here is a preview of events on our calendar for next week.

• Tuesday: ISACA NCA Meetup
• Thursday: ISSA NoVA Meetup

Remember that Baltimore Node, HacDC, Reverse Space, and Unallocated Space are four local hacker spaces that also hold several standard activities each week … so check them out for more fun stuff to do.

And be sure to subscribe to our RSS feed or follow us on Twitter at @novainfosec and @grecs to be alerted about any last-minute events or to receive updates on the meetups listed above. Finally, check out our Calendar for a complete list of infosec events in and around NoVA, DC, and MD.

Since I did not put out the where you want to be this week post earlier, I decided to put out a meetup reminder so that you know there is a meetup tonight in our area and also if you would like your event listed in our Calendar and in this post, contact us or mention it to @grecs on Twitter.

Friday (02/03)

• 2600 Arlington Meetup- Normal Meetup at Champps – Pentagon Row from 7:00 to 10:00 PM (more info)

Remember that Baltimore Node, HacDC, Reverse Space, and Unallocated Space are four local hacker spaces that also hold several standard activities each week … so check them out for more fun stuff to do.

And be sure to subscribe to our RSS feed or follow us on Twitter at @novainfosec and @grecs to be alerted about any last-minute events or to receive updates on the meetups listed above. Finally, check out our Calendar for a complete list of infosec events in and around NoVA, DC, and MD.

Where do you want to be this week? Now you’ll always know with our “Where You Want to Be This Week” feature, which will tell you about infosec meetups happening in your local area as of Sunday night. If you would like your event listed in our Calendar and in this post, contact us or mention it to @grecs on Twitter.

A light schedule for this week, with nothing formal and all you need to do is just show up and be ready to talk shop. Anyway, here are your meetups for this week.

This Week

Wednesday (1/25)

• ISSA Baltimore Meetup - Metasploit by Joshua Smith (kernelsmith) at SPARTA from 5:00 to 7:00 PM (more info)

Thursday (1/26)

• CharmSec Meetup – Normal Meetup at Slainte Irish Pub & Restaurant from 7:00 to 10:00 PM (more info)

And for those who would like to plan ahead, here is a preview of events on our calendar for next week.

• Monday: ShmooCon Epilogue
• Friday: 2600 Arlington Meetup

Remember that Baltimore Node, HacDC, Reverse Space, and Unallocated Space are four local hacker spaces that also hold several standard activities each week … so check them out for more fun stuff to do.

And be sure to subscribe to our RSS feed or follow us on Twitter at @novainfosec and @grecs to be alerted about any last-minute events or to receive updates on the meetups listed above. Finally, check out our Calendar for a complete list of infosec events in and around NoVA, DC, and MD.

Where do you want to be this week? Now you’ll always know with our “Where You Want to Be This Week” feature, which will tell you about infosec meetups happening in your local area as of Sunday night. If you would like your event listed in our Calendar and in this post, contact us or mention it to @grecs on Twitter.

A light schedule for this week, with nothing formal and all you need to do is just show up and be ready to talk shop. Anyway, here are your meetups for this week.

This Week

Tuesday (1/17)

• ISSA DC Meetup - “Attribution and Response” by Paul de Souza at Government Printing Office (Room A138) from 6:30 to 8:00 PM (more info)

Thursday (1/19)

• ISSA NoVA Meetup - “Privacy vs. Security: Achieving Balance In The Face Of Social Networks, Geolocation, and Cyberattacks” by Randy Sabett  at Oracle – Reston from 5:30 to 8:30 PM (more info)

Next Week

And for those who would like to plan ahead, here is a preview of events on our calendar for next week.

• Thursday: ISSA Baltimore Meetup and CharmSec Meetup

Remember that Baltimore Node, HacDC, Reverse Space, and Unallocated Space are four local hacker spaces that also hold several standard activities each week … so check them out for more fun stuff to do.

And be sure to subscribe to our RSS feed or follow us on Twitter at @novainfosec and @grecs to be alerted about any last-minute events or to receive updates on the meetups listed above. Finally, check out our Calendar for a complete list of infosec events in and around NoVA, DC, and MD.

Where do you want to be this week? Now you’ll always know with our “Where You Want to Be This Week” feature, which will tell you about infosec meetups happening in your local area as of Sunday night. If you would like your event listed in our Calendar and in this post, contact us or mention it to @grecs on Twitter.

As is common in the beginning of January it’s starting pretty slow. Next week at least there looks to be a little more activity. Anyway, here are your meetups for this week as well as a preview for next week.

This Week

Monday (1/9)

• NoVA Hackers Association Meetup - No formal presentation but instead will be several approximately 20 minute talks by a few of the attendees at ICF International from 5:30 to 8:30 PM (more info)

Next Week

And for those who would like to plan ahead, here is a preview of events on our calendar for next week.

• Tuesday: ISSA DC Meetup
• Thursday: ISSA NoVA Meetup

Remember that Baltimore Node, HacDC, Reverse Space, and Unallocated Space are four local hacker spaces that also hold several standard activities each week … so check them out for more fun stuff to do.

And be sure to subscribe to our RSS feed or follow us on Twitter at @novainfosec and @grecs to be alerted about any last-minute events or to receive updates on the meetups listed above. Finally, check out our Calendar for a complete list of infosec events in and around NoVA, DC, and MD.

Where do you want to be this week? Now you’ll always know with our “Where You Want to Be This Week” feature, which will tell you about infosec meetups happening in your local area as of Sunday night. If you would like your event listed in our Calendar and in this post, contact us or mention it to @grecs on Twitter.

A slow week to start the year with nothing formal and all you have to do is show up and be ready to talk shop.

This Week

Thursday (01/05)

• OWASP NoVA Meetup- Normal meetup at Oakton Public Library from 6:00 to 9:00 PM (more info)

Friday (01/06)

• 2600 Arlington Meetup- Normal meetup atChampps – Pentagon Row from 7:00 to 10:00 PM (more info)

Next Week

And for those who would like to plan ahead, here is a preview of events on our calendar for next week.

• Monday: NoVA Hackers Association Meetup

Remember that Baltimore Node, HacDC, Reverse Space, and Unallocated Space are four local hacker spaces that also hold several standard activities each week … so check them out for more fun stuff to do.

And be sure to subscribe to our RSS feed or follow us on Twitter at @novainfosec and @grecs to be alerted about any last-minute events or to receive updates on the meetups listed above. Finally, check out our Calendar for a complete list of infosec events in and around NoVA, DC, and MD.

Where do you want to be this week? Now you’ll always know with our “Where You Want to Be This Week” feature, which will tell you about infosec meetups happening in your local area as of Sunday night. If you would like your event listed in our Calendar and in this post, contact us or mention it to @grecs on Twitter.

Well as expected it’s a pretty slow week with Christmas being over and New Year’s around the corner. We only have one event listed below but hopefully CapSecDC will pop up with something on Wednesday. Anyway, here are your meetups for this week as well as a preview for next week.

[Update 12/27 12:30 PM: Looks like CapSecDC is on as well.]

This Week

Wednesday (12/28)

• CapSecDC Meetup – Normal meetup at Fado Irish Pub & Restaurant from 6:00 to 9:00 PM (more info)

Thursday (12/29)

• CharmSec Meetup – Normal meetup at Slainte Irish Pub & Restaurant from 7:00 to 10:00 PM (more info)

Next Week

And for those who would like to plan ahead, here is a preview of events on our calendar for next week.

• Thursday: OWASP NoVA Meetup
• Friday: 2600 Arlington Meetup

Remember that Baltimore Node, HacDC, Reverse Space, and Unallocated Space are four local hacker spaces that also hold several standard activities each week … so check them out for more fun stuff to do.

And be sure to subscribe to our RSS feed or follow us on Twitter at @novainfosec and @grecs to be alerted about any last-minute events or to receive updates on the meetups listed above. Finally, check out our Calendar for a complete list of infosec events in and around NoVA, DC, and MD.

Where do you want to be this week? Now you’ll always know with our “Where You Want to Be This Week” feature, which will tell you about infosec meetups happening in your local area as of Sunday night. If you would like your event listed in our Calendar and in this post, contact us or mention it to @grecs on Twitter.

Before we get things started, we at @novainfosec would to wish you a Happy Holidays! Now with that out of the way, here are a couple of meet-ups to get you through the week as well as a preview for next week.

This Week

Tuesday (12/20)

• ISSA DC Meetup - ”Advanced Threat Modeling” by John Steven at the Government Printing Office from 6:30 to 8:00 PM (more info)

Wednesday (12/21)

• OWASP DC Meetup - ”New Features in the Web Exploitation Framework (wXf)” by Ken Johnson & tentatively Chris Gates at Living Social from 6:30 to 8:30 PM (more info)

Next Week

And for those who would like to plan ahead, here is a preview of events on our calendar for next week.

• Thursday: CharmSec Meetup

Remember that Baltimore Node, HacDC, Reverse Space, and Unallocated Space are four local hacker spaces that also hold several standard activities each week … so check them out for more fun stuff to do.

And be sure to subscribe to our RSS feed or follow us on Twitter at @novainfosec and @grecs to be alerted about any last-minute events or to receive updates on the meetups listed above. Finally, check out our Calendar for a complete list of infosec events in and around NoVA, DC, and MD.

Where do you want to be this week? Now you’ll always know with our “Where You Want to Be This Week” feature, which will tell you about infosec meetups happening in your local area as of Sunday night. If you would like your event listed in our Calendar and in this post, contact us or mention it to @grecs on Twitter.

The week has turned out to be our busiest week yet, with meet-ups on everyday of the week. We are sure you will find something to do and keep you busy. There are 2 new meet-ups on our calendar, don’t be afraid to drop in and talk shop. Anyway, here are your meetups for this week with a preview for next week….

Monday (12/12)

• Tuesday: ISSA DC Meetup
• Wednesday: OWASP DC Meetup

Remember that Baltimore Node, HacDC, Reverse Space, and Unallocated Space are four local hacker spaces that also hold several standard activities each week … so check them out for more fun stuff to do.

And be sure to subscribe to our RSS feed or follow us on Twitter at @novainfosec and @grecs to be alerted about any last-minute events or to receive updates on the meetups listed above. Finally, check out our Calendar for a complete list of infosec events in and around NoVA, DC, and MD.

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.