“Top 11 Reasons Why You Should NOT Miss the SANS DFIR Summit and Training this Year”

The SANS DFIR Summit and Training 2018 is turning 11! The 2018 event marks 11 years since SANS started what is today the digital forensics and incident response event of the year, attended by forensicators time after time. Join us and enjoy the latest in-depth presentations from influential DFIR experts and the opportunity to take an array of hands-on SANS DFIR courses. You can also earn CPE credits and get the opportunity to win coveted DFIR course coins!

To commemorate the 11th annual DFIR Summit and Training 2018, here are 11 reasons why you should NOT miss the Summit this year:

1. Save money! There are two ways to save on your DFIR Summit & Training registration (offers cannot be combined):

Register for a DFIR course by May 7 and get 50% off a Summit seat (discount automatically applied at registration), or

Pay by April 19 and save $400 on any 4-day or 6-day course, or up to $200 off of the Summit. Enter code “EarlyBird18” when registering.

2. Check out our jam-packed DFIR Summit agenda!

The two-day Summit will kick off with a keynote presentation by Kim Zetter, an award-winning journalist who has provided the industry with the most in-depth and important investigative reporting on information security topics. Her research on such topical issues as Stuxnet and election security has brought critical technical issues to the public in a way that clearly shows why we must continue to push the security industry forward.

The Summit agenda will also include a presentation about the Shadow Brokers, the group that allegedly leaked National Security Agency cyber tools, leading to some of the most significant cybersecurity incidents of 2017. Jake Williams and Matt Suiche, who were among those targeted by the Shadow Brokers, will cover the history of the group and the implications of its actions.

All DFIR Summit speakers are industry experts who practice digital forensics, incident response, and threat hunting in their daily jobs. The Summit Advisory Board handpicked these professionals to provide you with highly technical presentations that will give you a brand-new perspective of how the industry is evolving to fight against even the toughest of adversaries. But don’t take our word for it, have a sneak peek, check out some of the past DFIR Summit talks.

Immerse yourself in six days of the best in SANS DFIR training. Here are the courses you can choose from:

FOR500 — Advanced Windows Forensics

FOR585 – Advanced Smartphone Forensics

FOR610 – Reverse-Engineering Malware

FOR508 — Digital Forensics, Incident Response & Threat Hunting

FOR572 – Advanced Network Forensics: Threat Hunting, Analysis, and Incident Response

FOR578 – Cyber Threat Intelligence

FOR526 — Memory Forensics In-Depth

FOR518 — Mac and iOS Forensic Analysis and Incident Response

MGT517 – Managing Security Operations: Detection, Response, and Intelligence

3. All courses will be taught by SANS’s best DFIR instructors. Stay tuned for more information on the courses we’re offering at the conference in a future article post.

4. Rub elbows and network with DFIR pros at evening events, including networking gatherings and receptions. On the first night of the Summit, we’re going to gather at one of Austin’s newest entertainment venues, SPiN, a ping pong restaurant and bar featuring 14 ping pong tables, lounges, great food, and drinks. Give your overloaded brain a break after class and join us at our SANS Community Night, Monday, June 9 at Speakeasy. We will have plenty of snacks and drinks to give you the opportunity to network with fellow students.

5. Staying to take a DFIR course after the two-day Summit? Attend SANS@Night talks guaranteed to enrich your DFIR training experience with us. Want to know about threat detection on the cheap and other topics? As for cheap (and in this case, that doesn’t mean weak), there are actions you can take now to make threat detection more effective without breaking the bank. Attend this SANS@Night talk on Sunday evening to learn some baselines you should be measuring against and how to gain visibility into high-value actionable events that occur on your systems and networks.

6. Celebrate this year’s Ken Johnson Scholarship Recipient, who will be announced at the Summit. This scholarship was created by the SANS Institute and KPMG LLP in honor of Ken Johnson, who passed away in 2016. Early in Ken’s digital forensics career, he submitted to a Call for Presentations and was accepted to present his findings at the 2012 SANS DFIR Summit. His networking at the Summit led to his job with KPMG.

7. Prove you’ve mastered the DFIR arts by playing in the DFIR NetWars – Coin Slayer Tournament. Created by popular demand, this tournament will give you the chance to leave Austin with a motherlode of DFIR coinage! To win the new course coins, you must answer all questions correctly from all four levels of one or more of the six DFIR Domains: Windows Forensics & Incident Response, Smartphone Analysis, Mac Forensics, Memory Forensics, Advanced Network Forensics, and Malware Analysis. Take your pick or win them all!

 

 

8. Enjoy updated DFIR NetWars levels with new challenges. See them first at the Summit! But not to worry, you will have the opportunity to train before the tournament. You’ll have access to a lot of updated posters that can serve as cheat sheets to help you conquer the new challenges, as well as the famous SIFT WorkStation that will arm you with the most powerful DFIR open-source tools available. You could also choose to do an hour of crash training on how to use some of our Summit sponsors’ tools prior to the tournament. That should help give you an edge, right? That new DFIR NetWars coin is as good as won!

9. The Forensic 4:cast Awards winners will be announced at the Summit. Help us celebrate the achievements of digital forensic investigators around the world deemed worthy of the award by their peers. There is still time to cast your vote. (You may only submit one set of votes; any additional voting will be discounted). Voting will close at the end of the day on May 25, 2018.

10. Come see the latest in tools offered by DFIR solution providers. Summit sponsors and exhibitors will showcase everything from managed services covering advanced threat detection, proactive threat hunting, and accredited incident response to tools that deliver rapid threat detection at scale, and reports that provide insights for identifying potential threats before they cause damage.

11. Last but not least, who doesn’t want to go to Austin?!? When you think Austin, you think BBQ, right? This city isn’t just BBQ, Austin has amazing food everywhere and there’s no place like it when it comes to having a great time. The nightlife and music include the famous 6th Street — which, by the way, is just walking distance from the Summit venue. There are many other landmarks such as Red River, the Warehouse District, Downtown, and the Market District. You will find entertainment of all kinds no matter what you’re up for. Nothing wrong with some well-deserved play after days full of DFIR training, lectures, and networking!

As you can see, this is an event you do not want to miss! The SANS DFIR Summit and Training 2018 will be held at the Hilton Austin. The event features two days of in-depth digital forensics and incident response talks, nine SANS DFIR courses, two nights of DFIR NetWars, evening events, and SANS@Night talks.

The Summit will be held on June 7-8, and the training courses run from June 9-14.

We hope to see you there!