What beats a week of security training with your peers? Not much. That’s why SANSFIRE 2009 is an event that you should add to your calendar right now, before you get distracted by any other pesky summer plans.

Taking place in Baltimore this year, SANSFIRE will be held between June 13th and 22nd at the Hilton Baltimore. There are special rates available before slots fill up, so register now if you haven’t already.

And speaking of special rates… if you register by the end of today, May 6th, you get $350 off the regular price of the event. If you can’t quite swing registering today, the good news is that you’re also eligible to receive a $250 discount if you register before May 20th.

According to the SANSFIRE website, “[a]t SANSFIRE 2009 you will be provided with new information about new threats, and you can acquire the solid foundation in InfoSec that you need to stay on top of them.” There will be over 30 courses to choose from this year, with new courses alongside tried-and-true classics. You can check out the list below to get an idea of what’s being offered.

• Security 401: SANS Security Essentials Bootcamp Style
• Security 504: Hacker Techniques, Exploits & Incident Handling
• Security 560: Network Penetration Testing and Ethical Hacking
• Management 414: SANS® +S™ Training Program for the CISSP® Certification Exam
• Security 503: Intrusion Detection In-Depth
• Security 508: Computer Forensics, Investigation, and Response
• Security 610: Reverse-Engineering Malware: Malware Analysis Tools and Techniques
• Security 301: Intro to Information Security
• Audit 507: Auditing Networks, Perimeters & Systems
• Management 512: SANS Security Leadership Essentials for Managers with Knowledge Compression™
• Security 501: Advanced Security Essentials – Enterprise Defender – NEW

The courses also come with distinguished faculty, including: Stephen Northcutt, Johannes Ullrich, Dr. Eric Cole, Rob Lee, Lenny Zeltzer, Joshua Wright, John Strand, Chris Brenton, Kevin Johnson, Scott Moulton, Frank Kim, Jason Fossen, Eric Conrad, David Hoelzer, Stephen Sims, Michael Murr, Jonathan Ham, Bryce Galbraith, Fred Kerby, Mike Poor, and Jeff Frisk.

SANSFIRE even has options for those of us who learn better at night, with evening events focusing on the SANS web application honeynet. According to the SANS website, “[e]vening talks at SANSFIRE 2009 will provide extraordinary insights into actual attacks that have taken place over the past year. […] You’ll learn about current threats and how the SANS Internet Storm Center can help you in your fight against these threats.” Free to registered attendees, volunteer incident handlers will be present at these evening events.

• Who: SANS
• What: SANSFIRE 2009
• When: 06-13 -06-22-09
• Where: Hilton Baltimore (401 West Pratt Street, Baltimore, MD 21201)

For more information on SANSFIRE 2009, see its description in our Infosec Conferences section. View our Calendar for a list of similar infosec events in and around the NoVA area. Register for SANSFIRE here.

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In addition to registering for SANS events through NovaInfosecPortal, you can also help keep the site going by becoming a subscriber.

So, it’s that time of the week again—the time where we spotlight the best posts by local security bloggers. This week there were some especially thought-provoking posts mixed with some humorous v-blog posts that are a must-see.

If you have any recommendations for local security bloggers that we should keep our eye on, leave a comment below or send us a tweet @grecs.

#3 – More Than 140: Opening his post with the dilemma of needing more than 140 characters to answer a question about embedded devices via Twitter, @cyberhiker decided to write a blog post about it instead. Discussing some of the drawbacks of embedded devices, @cyberhiker wrote that “[embedded] devices will never have the security controls that full blown operating systems and applications are capable of implementing.” (Sorry, Microsoft haters.) @cyberhiker then offers some helpful tips about how to test embedded devices and make them secure as possible. If you’d like to read the full post, you can view it here.    

#2 – The Cybersecurity Act in Two Parts: (Note: While @rybolov actually wrote two separate posts dealing with the Cybersecurity Act of 2009, they were a “Part 1” and “Part 2” kind of deal, so we’re counting them as one post, just FYI). In his post(s) about the Cybersecurity Act of 2009, @rybolov talks about the nuts-and-bolts of the Cybersecurity Act and what kinds of changes (both good and bad) the Act will bring about. The especially nice thing about these two posts is that @rybolov lists the different sections of the Cybersecurity Act and then comments on them, giving them his own “verdict.” This is definitely an important read for anyone in the security industry, as many of these changes have the potential to make some changes to the way we’re currently doing things. You can read “Part 1” and “Part 2” on the Guerilla CISO blog.

#1 – Back to Basics: Marcus J. Carey has been on a roll this week, taking our number one slot for his v-blog post “The Secret to Troubleshooting: Thin-slicing.” To be honest, we would have given all of our slots to Marcus this week not only because because his v-blogs are hilarious, but also because a lot of what he has to say resonates with our own beliefs about security. In his post “The Secret to Troubleshooting: Thin-slicing,” he addresses one of the most important parts of security: The basics. He says in his post that knowing the basics about something can help eliminate what could become bigger issues. He also makes another great point, saying that people will often try and find complex solutions to complex problems when really, if they just did the basics well, they would prevent a lot of those complex problems. You can watch the full post here.

Bonus: While we couldn’t give Marcus every slot, we did want to highlight some his additional v-blog posts this week, specifically his “Selling Security” and “Ham Security” posts. The “Ham Security” post is especially poignant as it shows why people shouldn’t always do things the same way simply because “that’s the way it’s always been done.” The “Selling Security” post is a good watch, especially for those of us who have to “sell” good security to our management. It’s about not assuming that management will just “give it to you:” You may need to approach them several times.

Well, that’s all for this week—as always, feel free to comment or send us a tweet @grecs.

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Do you have your pass to SANSFIRE yet? If not, why not purchase it through NovaInfosecPortal? It doesn’t cost you anything extra, and it helps us keep the site going.

As many of you probably already know SANS will be running the SANSFIRE infosec conference event later this month. Here are the logistics for this year’ conference:

• Who: SANS
• What: SANSFIRE
• When: 7/22 – 7/31/2008
• Where: Wardman Park Marriott Hotel (2660 Woodley Road, NW; Washington, DC 20008; 202-328-2000)

For more information on SANSFIRE, see its description in our Infosec Conferences section. See SANS’s conference page for more information.