Tag: Training

Teaching Community SANS Security 503: Intrusion Detection In-Depth

Posted on by Ismael Valenzuela

I’m glad to announce that I will be teaching Community SANS Security 503: Intrusion Detection In-Depth at Banbury, Oxfordshire (UK). This 6-day course will run from Monday, February 15, 2010 through Saturday, February 20, 2010.

If you haven’t heard of Community SANS courses before, I encourage you to have a look at this new format (new outside the US, where it’s been running for years). This is a great way of bringing the popular SANS courses to your local security community at a reasonable cost, especially for those that can’t attend the major events.  It’s worth mentioning that unlike the SANS Mentor  sessions, these are delivered over a six-day period, just like it is at a larger SANS event, including the full set of books and access to audio files. They are just delivered in your own community, in a small classroom setting and at a discounted cost for tuition and travel expenses.

I’ve already described my experience with SANS, both as student and facilitator, so I won’t go over that again. Also, you can find a further detailed description of the Security 503 track on SANS website, an outstanding course that I’ve already described as the “most valuable course I’ve ever taken”. However, I want you to listen to Mike Poor, instructor at the SANS Institute and co-author of this course (along with Judy Novak and Guy Bruneau), describing it on YouTube. Mike Poor is both an amazing professional and a great guy that I had the opportunity to meet at SANS Sydney in 2008, when I took his Penetration Testing class. As Mike would say, this IDS course is simply “awesome”!

From Brussels to Amsterdam calling at London and Sydney

Posted on by Ismael Valenzuela

That’s been what I call my ‘SANS itinerary’ since I started this exciting journey back in June 2007. It all started at SANS Secure Europe, in Brussels, where I took my first SANS class with Jess Garcia, CEO of One eSecurity and a good friend of mine. It was SECURITY 508, System Forensics, Investigation & Response, an awesome track created by Rob Lee on one of the most interesting and hot topics of Information Security. It’s been almost two years since then, but now I realize the tremendous positive influence that event had in my career as a security professional.

Early on the first day, I could see that was a different kind of training, far different from all the training sessions I had attended before, including the well-known CISSP bootcamp and vendor specific training like Checkpoint‘s and others I took in the past. Unlike those, this was real hands-on training, with lots of exercises and challenges, including the use of several virtual machines and an arsenal of security tools you can take home with you. Also, the amount of material you receive throughout a 6-day course is awesome. Someone described it like “drinking directly from a fire hose”. Actually, I can’t describe it better.

Add to that a friendly, relaxed but yet professional atmosphere, and the multiple opportunities you get for both networking and sheer knowledge with attendees and instructors and you will understand why Brussels was only the start.

SANS Secure Europe 2007

With Carlos Fragoso and Richard Fadul at SANS Secure Europe 2007 in Brussels

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