About Us

Mission

Our mission is to serve the information security community in and around Charlotte, NC by primarily holding an annual BSides Charlotte Security Conference which offers learning opportunities through talks, activity villages, and capture-the-flag competitions. From time-to-time BSides Charlotte may put on training opportunities and partner with other organizations to bring value added content to the community.

Our History

Security BSides is an idea and a information security un-conference that started back in 2009 in Las Vegas.

Security BSides Charlotte (BSidesCLT) was an idea that started with this tweet from @can0beans back in 2012. With help primarily from, but not limited to, @amolesa, @c0ncealed, @fmm, @damonbrinkley, @th3mojo BSidesCLT was born.

@BSidesCLT partnered with the excellent Southeast Linux Fest from 2013 – 2015. While the partnership with SELF was mutually beneficial. BSides leadership determined that it was necessary to separate from SELF to help put more focus on the information / cyber security aspect of BSides Charlotte.

2016 marked the first year that @BSidesCLT hosted a conference beginning to end of it’s own at UNC City Center.

In 2017 we became an official 501(c)3 organization but due to unforeseen circumstances the conference was not able to take place and for the next few years remained dormant.

In 2019, through conversations between Torry Crass (@torrycrass), Jenee Rogers (@likeidreamof28) and Don Hess with an all important discussion with Jack Daniel confirming support for the idea, events were set in motion to transition BSides Charlotte to a new board that includes the previously mentioned 3 members as well as Drew Green (@agreenbhm) and Alex Hutton. The 2019 conference (theme: InfoSec Journeys) was planned and held with 2-tracks, CTF, spawn camp, and sponsors in roughly 3 months.

Board leadership was formally transitioned by board action in December of 2019.

Topics of Interest

Cryptography
Vulnerabilities
Secure system design
Identity and access management
Information security program design and implementation
Exploitation
Physical security
Secure software design
Lock sport and lock picking
Capture the flag events
Interesting problem solving
Unique ideas
Not hacking 101
Buffer overflows
Digital forensics and incident response
Breach detection
Anonymity