Engage: Takeaways from DEF CON 32

This year’s DEF CON theme was “engage” and that absolutely came through between the record attendance from high-profile government officials, the seriously advanced villages and competitions and the launch of DEF CON Franklin, a call to action to the security community to help sure up the nation’s vulnerable water systems. After a year of high-profile breaches including MGM and Caesar’s that heavily impacted the city of Las Vegas, which has hosted the event for the last 32 years, it’s clear this iconic conference is more important than ever.

There were many well-attended talks from prominent current and former government officials including CISA Director Jen Easterly who did a Q&A session with DEF CON’s founder, Jeff Moss (thedarktangent) and White House Deputy National Security Advisor for Cyber Anne Neuberger who spoke hopefully about the role AI can play in helping find and remediate vulnerabilities. Retired General Paul Nakasone spoke about his priorities for improving national and election security that he dealt with firsthand during his time with the NSA and U.S. Cyber Command, including his role launching a new institute at Vanderbilt University in September. National Cyber Director Harry Coker announced a new $11 million initiative between the White House and DHS and spoke with attendees about the need to improve the security of open-source software used by critical sectors including healthcare, transportation and energy. It’s heartening to see so much collaboration between the DEF CON community and public policy officials – contrast this with the “spot the fed” game played not too many years ago when government officials used to try and hide their presence.

A big first for DEF CON this year was a fully immersive, walkable city and contest, a collaboration between DARPA, ARPA-H and several prominent tech companies, that challenged participants to use AI to help remediate and identify vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure including transportation, hospitals and water systems. This was clearly a huge effort by several teams and the sophistication of the activation show the weight that companies and government organizations put on the talent of the DEF CON community to really help improve our most critical systems and the need to collaborate with them to do so.

DEF CON itself put a call out to the community with the launch of DEF CON Franklin, an initiative to connect volunteer security experts with the nearly 50,000 independent water and wastewater facilities in the country, systems that are particularly vulnerable. Co-led by Jake Braun, former U.S. Department of Homeland Security secretary’s senior advisor to the management directorate, the goal is to harden the country’s overall infrastructure with public schools being the next target. If you or anyone you know want get involved, sign up here.

The image of the security community has come a long way from the stereotypical guy in a hoodie in a dark basement with a toxic amount of Mountain Dew. Security is now something that touches everyone – literally as I am writing this, I got a phishing email. It’s become a priority for individuals, SMBs, enterprises and public-sector organizations who are now actively seeking to engage with security experts to better identify blind spots. Like any technology project, effective communication will play a key role in its success and I’m excited to have a front seat.

Insights provided by 5WPR Senior Vice President, B2B, Monika Hathaway.