About Us

What is BSides Las Vegas?

BSides Las Vegas is an Information / Security conference that’s different. We’re a volunteer organized event, put on by and for the community, and we truly strive to keep information free.

There is no charge to the public to attend BSidesLV. Our costs are covered by our generous donors and sponsors, who share our vision of free dissemination of information. The conversations are getting more potent and the “TALK AT YOU” conferences are starting to realize they have to change. BSidesLV is making this happen by shaking-up the format.

The next big thing

Presenters at our conference are engaging our participants and getting the discussions started on the “Next Big Thing”, not preaching at you from the podium about last month’s news. There are no “attendees” at a BSides event. EVERYONE is a participant, adding something of value to the conversations.

With tracks as diverse as “Common Ground”, focusing on non-tech issues of importance to the community, “Underground”, our Off-The-Record series that lets you delve deeper into the subjects that are better-off discussed Away-From-Keys, behind closed doors, “Hire Ground”, our Career Track, focused on matching our Sponsors with participants looking for their next job, or career change and “Proving Ground”, our mentorship program for first-time presenters, YOU are the reason for this new era of Information Sharing and Teamwork.

Raising the bar for security

The BSides community has continuously raised the bar and put the INFO back in INFOSEC. We thank each and every member/participant/organizer of this community for their hard work, sweat, and relentless pursuit of High Quality information.

We also have to give a HUGE amount of thanks to our generous sponsors and donors that have the foresight to give without strings attached, year after year, and PROVE to the community that we are all in this together. In concert, the participants, sponsors and donors have allowed for us all to get together and make moves to change InfoSec…. one chat, presentation, laugh, and/or drink at a time.

With some of the most passionate and influential infosec practitioners from around the country, and the world, coming to Vegas, BSidesLV is the place to be. The mix ranges from “down in the trenches” engineers, to business leaders, thought leaders, and executive decision makers of all stripes.

Board of Directors

Genevieve Southwick, President, CEO (@banasidhe)

Genevieve has been loosely involved in the hacker community for almost 20 years. She began attending Digital Decay meetups in 714 in the early 90’s, and was eventually invited to attend DEFCON IV by her best friend at the time. She fell in love with the people, the community and the culture, and has never looked back. After running the BSidesLV Safety Operations crew for BSidesLV II & III, – she has a secondary education diploma in Homeland Security and a PhySec background that dates back to 1991 – she stepped-up to take over as producer for BSidesLV IV. She is enjoying the challenges of her roles of Executive Producer and President of the Board and is constantly striving to expand the scope of BSidesLV offerings, while trying to keep the size manageable enough for a small NPO to affordably host. As owner and CSH (Chief Squirrel Herder) of Squirrel Herder Productions, LLC, Genevieve has begun offering her event planning expertise to other IS conferences and related organizations. In her free time, she volunteers for a sexual assault hotline, an Independent Film Festival, and blows-up fireworks with a local pyrotechnics team.

Jack Daniel, Treasurer, CFO (@jack_daniel)

Jack Daniel, Technical Product Manager for Tenable Network Security, has over 20 years’ experience in network and system administration and security, and has worked in a variety of practitioner and management positions.  A technology community activist, Jack is a co-founder of the Security BSides movement and serves on the Board of Directors for Security BSides Las Vegas, Inc., and Security BSides, Inc.  A frequent speaker at technology and security events large and small, Jack is a CISSP, holds CCSK, and is a Microsoft MVP for Enterprise Security. Jack’s Uncommon Sense Security was named to the Security Bloggers’ Hall of Fame at the 2013 Security Blogger Awards.

Justin Tibbs, Secretary (@JMP_EBP)

An avid security researcher in the fields of network and application security, Justin has worked with companies such as Cisco, Apple, Microsoft, Symantec, and IBM (ISS) to validate and remediate vulnerabilities discovered in their applications and products. While at Cisco, where he was a member of the World Wide Security Services practice, he was tasked with helping customers understand security threats to their applications, and infrastructure; and helped develop application testing methodologies known as Deep Application Vulnerability Assessments (DAVA) used by internal teams to validate the security posture of their applications. Additionally, he has held security-related positions at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman, where he consulted for both the US Department of Defense (DoD) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on subject matter relating to secure network design and application security.  Justin was a core member of the SNOSoft research team in the 90’s and early 2000’s, and currently holds the position of CSO for Red Sky Solutions.

Meredith L. Patterson, General Director (@maradydd)

Meredith L. Patterson is a software engineer, formal language theorist, and co-originator of the language-theoretic approach to computer security (with Len Sassaman and Sergey Bratus). Her work has appeared in IEEE Security and Privacy and Systems Journal, USENIX ;login, and Financial Cryptography, and she often speaks at security conferences in the US and Europe. Her firm, Upstanding Hackers, LLC, develops open-source security software, including the Hammer parser generator library. She is also involved with the biohacking community, holds a General class ham radio license, and is an avid shooter.

Iftach Ian Amit, General Director (@iiamit)

Iftach (Ian) Amit, has over  15 years of experience in hands-on and strategic roles, working across a diversity of security fields: business, industry, marketing, technical and research. At Amazon, Ian is the Director of Application Security. Previously, Ian lead ZeroFOX’s customer solutions offerings and ran their New York offices. Ian also served as Director of Services at IOActive. His career also includes time at Security-Art, Aladdin, Finjan, and Datavantage, as well as speaking at conferences such as BlackHat, DefCon, and InfoSecurity. A skilled researcher, Ian has deep technical knowledge of programming, operating systems (particularly Unix and Win32), applications (including most network server applications), penetration testing, databases and infrastructures. He founded the Tel-Aviv DefCon chapter (DC9723) and also was a founding member of the Penetration Testing Execution Standard (PTES). Ian studied Computer Science and Business Administration at the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center and lives in Manhattan.

Dave Lewis, General Director (@gattaca)

Dave Lewis has almost two decades of industry experience. He has extensive experience in IT operations and management. Currently, Lewis is a Global Security Advocate for Akamai Technologies. He is the founder of the security site Liquidmatrix Security Digest and cohost of the Liquidmatrix podcast. Lewis writes a column for CSO Online and Forbes.

Jessica Archer, General Director (@j3ssa)

Jessica Archer has 20 years of combined experience working in telecommunications and technology including 14 years working within the information security industry. She is currently a Senior Competition Development Coordinator for the Center for Infrastructure Assurance and Security at the University of Texas, San Antonio. As the Director of External relations for the National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition she has helped create, develop, oversee, and grow the competition over the past 12 years into the largest and most prestigious tiered collegiate cyber defense competition system in the U.S.A.

Officers

Chief Operations Officer – Kelly “Nous” Gardner (@nousie)

Kelly “nous” Gardner ran volt ops like a pro, and is generally known as a big meanie head who can spot cabana boys and exploit this talent. She has a tiara, because that’s a thing now; lovable blue hair; and can generally cook better than all of the other BSidesLV senior staff. She’s knowledgeable in resource allocation and can kill stupid before it gets out of hand. Some people think she’s kind. In real life, she’s a pastry cook on the bottom of the totem at a 1-Michelin-star restaurant.

Chief Security Officer – Rob Carson (@robcarson05)

Rob Carson is currently Director of Security for Cherwell Software. Although not currently on Active Duty, he is also a Captain in the USMC and served FT for 7 years. Rob has built highly successful Information Security Management Systems as well as implementing and maintaining certifications for ISO 27001:2005/2013, PCI, and HIPPA and holds a CISSP and a CISA. In his spare time, he loves Skiing, Scuba Diving, and raising his Man Cubs with Mama Bear. He is very excited to be involved with BSidesLV, especially the opportunity to provide a safe environment for participants to get their “Nerd On”.  All this while implementing an Ops temp that, as we continue to grow, won’t kill all the Awesome volunteers that make this happen.

Chief Media Officer – Steve Ragan (@SteveD3)

Prior to joining the journalism world in 2005, Steve spent 15 years as a freelance IT contractor focused on infrastructure management and security. He’s a father of two, and rounded geek with a strong technical background.

Senior Staff