Diplomatic Security Consulting (LayerOne 2009)

This is the video of the talk titled "Diplomatic Security Consulting" given at LayerOne 2009 by Kevin A. Nassery. The slides can be downloaded here.

Talk Description: Security consulting offers unparalleled opportunities for professional learning. In fact, each new engagement offers a new systems infrastructure, new security challenges, and a unique opportunity to make significant, long-term contributions through leading, progressive, short-term projects. Interestingly, some brilliant security minds today lack the ability to navigate and adapt to the non-technical challenges in a given environment. This talk will provide real-world accounts of difficult customer engagements and build on some of the successes and failures charted during my own career.

Sample topics:

    * Why “you’re dumb” will not get you very far.
    * Simply being correct does not establish credibility among those who cannot understand you.
    * Establishing influence quickly within an organization.
    * Understanding why and how you were engaged.
    * Understanding the evolution (or devolution) of security issues.
    * Maintaining a perspective for the tools and skills present within an organization.
    * Maintaining a focus on active engagement.


Author Info:  Kevin A. Nassery is a hands-on technical architect, who has been an active Unix systems, network, and security engineer and consultant for more than a decade. After serving for more than four years as principal infrastructure architect for a major online presence, he recently returned to his passion of security consulting. At present, he is a RHCE, CISSP, and a graduate student at Depaul University, where he studies Computer, Information, and Network security. He is currently a senior security consultant with Consciere LLC.

Vivek Ramachandran is a security evangelist and has been working in computer security related fields for the past 7 years. In 2007, Vivek spoke at world renowned conferences Defcon (WEP Cloaking Exposed) and Toorcon (The Caffe Latte Attack). The discovery of the Caffe Latte Attack was covered by CBS5 news, BBC online, Network World etc news agencies.In 2006, Vivek was announced as one of winners of the Microsoft Security Shootout contest held in India among 65,000 participants. He has also been a recipient of a Team Achievement at Cisco Systems for his work on 802.1x and Port Security modules on the Catalyst 6500 switches. Currently he spends all of his time maintaining Security- Freak.Net , SecurityTube.Net and is the co-founder of Axonize. Vivek, is a Bachelor in Electronics and Communications Engineering from the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati.You can contact him at vivek[at]securitytube.net