First SecOps Job at Circle City Con 2016
By Greenjam94
Hey guys, I know it’s been a while since I posted. Thank you for coming back to read more. I hope you find these interesting. This post is a follow up of my SecOps experience at Circle City Con. I learned a lot and am looking forward to doing it again.
The Conference
Circle City Con is a annual security conference in Indianapolis. This year’s theme was Game of Pwns. The theme added a fun aspect to the usual conference atmosphere. The organizers dressed up in Renaissance garb and became “heads of houses”. Each of which offered challenges based on a specific field in security. A few of my favorites were social engineering, incident response, and penetration testing. Winning these challenges gave points for the CTF that lasted the entire conference.
Social engineering involved challenges like taking a group photo of a few houses together, making an organizer hold something purple, and more. The Incident response challenge was a quiz to test your skill and knowledge of the trade. The penetration testing challenge was a test to gain access to a network by figuring out the wifi password by decrypting a poem and finding the right information online. I’m still hoping to find a more complete writeup of the challenges.
I like to volunteer at conferences. Volunteering allows me to connect with the organizers and get a view of what happens “behind the curtain” at conferences. It’s great for networking. I offered to help Security Operations (SecOps) for the conference and shortly after was signed up to work 5 shifts for the weekend.
Working SecOps
I learned a lot from working on the SecOps team. First and foremost, they get to use radios and let’s be honest, that’s the coolest part of the job. I worked a few different spots on my shift, watching different areas of the con. However the end goal was always the same: Check for badges and keep everyone safe.
The only downside I found to working security for Circle City con was how long the shifts were. I’m always trying to help however I can, and that means that I try to take as many shifts that are open. At the same time, that means I miss things at the conference, like checking out the CTF, talking to vendors, and going to see speakers. Next time I sign up to help out, it’ll definitely not be for every shift and I’ll be sure to save some time for actually going to the conference.