SFISSA's 2018 Hack the Flag and Chili Cookoff

The South Florida ISSA Chapter is again held our annual Hack the Flag/Chili Cookoff in October of 2018.  For the third year we were hosted at FIU's Graham Center on their main campus.

As always, we had 2 games, a beginner and an advanced.  We had a lockpick village.  We had food and drink.  And we had a keynote speaker!   Oh, and our chili cookoff.

2017 SFISSA Security Conference Report

This past Friday, the South Florida ISSA Chapter held its 2017 Security Conference.  The chapter holds these every 2 years, and this year's event was our more successful one to date.

We had 4 tracks of talks, include a track of workshops (twice the length of a regular presentation), a breakfast and lunch keynote, and a CISO Panel of 4 local CISOs.

SFISSA 2016 Hack the Flag/Chili Cookoff UPDATE

The South Florida ISSA Chapter is again our annual Hack the Flag/Chili Cookoff in 2016.  This is looking to be our biggest ever.

New location.

New stuff,

Want to be a part of it???  Register TODAY!!!  Go HERE to register.  Want to be a sponsor?? Let us know!!

South Florida ISSA's 2016 Hack the Flag/Chili Cookoff event

For as long as I can remember, the South Florida ISSA Chapter has been hosting an annual Hack the Flag/Chili Cookoff.  We have a 'capture the flag' event, where teams work against each other to hack a system and collect 'flags'.  We've accompanied this with a chili cookoff (along with food and drinks), as not everyone does the CTF.  Most years we've had some kind of theme (russian, brazilian, asian, etc), and the last few we've had t-shirts.  Over the years we've been in a few different places (I can recall 5 different ones).  A couple of years ago we added a lockpick village as well.

Our event was bigger last year as we were celebrating our 15th Anniversary.  We had a bounce house and some other things.

SFISSA's 2015 Anniversary Party/Hack the Flag event

The South Florida Chapter of ISSA is celebrating their 15th Anniversary this year.

Every year an event they put on is the Hack the Flag/Chili Cookoff.  At this event, they usually have 2 "hack the flag" events, one for beginners and another advanced.  The advanced game had been done by our local friends at Kommand && KonTroll CTF (part of HackMiami).

Getting involved locally- joining, learning, networking

So its been too long since I've posted.  Something in the back of my mind is my observations of my collegues in the IT and IT Security realm.  What has long disappointed me was how many never bothered to keep learning and being involved in the larger "community".  Other then taking some training courses, many didn't bother to keep up with what is going on in the industry- didn't read journals (either print or on-line), didn't get engaged with local groups or events or the like.

For me, I joined USENIX and SAGE when I got involved as an IT admin.  When I got involved in IT Security, I joined ISSA and got involved in the South Florida ISSA chapter.  I was briefly involved with ISACA (and thought about getting back involved).  I know about other groups (we have a chapter of ISC(2) getting formed) and have looked at others to see if they were worth joining.

I tried to get involved with local events tied with those groups (my chapter runs a security conference every 2 years, and has an annual "hack the flag" event), as well as others.  Last year in December we had the ITPalooza event, which will happen again this year.

So my advise to you is if you want to succeed in your IT career: GET INVOLVED.  Depending on what your interest or focus is, see if there are groups that are appropriate for that, and join them.  Especially get involved with local chapters of these groups.  Maybe think about becoming an officer.  If you are the type, consider making a presentation, even its at a local event.

So, if you've had experience getting involved, comment about what you've done and what you've gotten out of it.