Over the past few years, the Information Security (IS) scene in the country increasingly sees young guys and girls actively participating and attending the many big and small conferences (or Con as the community would like to call them) across the country. For most youngsters IS begins as a hobby or passion and once bitten by the hacking bug it is not surprising to see a full immersion into self learning and exponential growth of professional skills of the individuals.
Many individuals have helped government and private organizations and their skills have been acknowledged and recognized globally. This year, 2016, there are a number of Indian professionals making a mark at the world’s largest Con – BlackHat, DefCon, BSides in Las Vegas., and their achievements are being recognized on the world stage.
If this is a precursor of things to come, it will not be surprising to see many more participants next year and the year after… until such time that the country’s young professionals will be standing on stage to be recognized as the world’s best.
These guys have made their mark in the international arena, without the support of any government help (so sad!) or the support of ANY Indian Unicorn / Enterprise / Gaddha or Ghoda. The guys who have their startups struggled to make ends meet but made it. And have shown the stuff they are made of.
Indian IS Professionals at BH/DefCon/Bsides
I am very happy to share a list of these achiever professionals who are making waves at Blackhat /Defcon / Bsides. Of course I did not attend and I see my old friend Antriksh Shah in the thick of things – I hope he will fill in more details. .
- Anant Srivastawa : AndroidTamer Tool Demo at BlackHat
- Anto Joseph : Fuzzing Android Devices – workshop at DEFCON
- Riyaz Waliker + Madhu Akula: “Infrastructure Monitoring” – Workshop at DEFCON
- Sanoop Thomas : Halcyon Tool demo at BlackHat
- Nishant Das Patnaik : Appmon Tool demo at BlackHat
- Shubham Mittal , Sudhanshu Chauhan & Nutan Kumar Panda: Data Sploit Tool Demo at DEFCON + Black Hat
- Krishna – First Indian Reporter to be certified by BlackHat as a technical reviewer
- Sneha Rajguru :
- Nikhal Mittal – NISHANG Tool Demo at Blackhat Briefings
- Aditya Gupta from Attify– Offensive Hands on Internet of Things Exploitation – Workshop at BlackHat
- Ajit Hatti – LAMMA (beta) a Framework for VA & auditing of cryptography, PKI … at BlackHat Arsenal
(these are the names I got from Ajit but if you know any others who were there please add the names in comment or send them to me and I shall gladly update this post.)
And I must also mention Antriksh, Aseem and Murtuja founders of nullcon who have started an international conference in Europe – hardwear.ioam sure this event sees many from BH/DC etc attending and will grow to be as big as the parent Con.
Hello Government….
I want to make another point here that all these guys seem to have made the trip using their own funds without any subsidy or sponsorship or organization support. They are doing workshops and may have charged for the same but then they delivered value and are getting international recognition. Way to go guys ! More power to you.
The IS scene has come a long way baby! I remember, way back in 2010, I asked the country manager of a MNC security company to support one of the events with a measly sum of Rs 1 lac; he said it is too small an event. I think they are sponsors at the same event now <never underestimate the power of the common Indian :-)>. Then there was this big name organization and the CEO said they do not support such events. I did not even ask for money; all I had said was “support” the event and organizers like a parent would Nothing doing!
So much for any help from any quarter. However, I can see things are happening and all I want to say is – more power to you all and may your power help the cause of IS (the cause of Information Security for the country)!
Throughout my life I have seen individuals succeeding across the country NOT BECAUSE OF the support of any government department or selfish enterprise / organization – the success has been INSPITE OF SUCH IMPEDIMENTS AND IMPEDING INSTITUTIONS.
I pray may the tribe of Indian IS professionals getting international fame and recognition increase with each year and may the Government recognize policy weaknesses and take corrective action.
This is also a call to the Government and all those individuals – those who have the interest of the country at heart, and the wherewithal to support the nascent InfoSec Community: Please step up! Support the talent in the country, change the way you think, recognize the talent available IN THE COUNTRY, fund them, nurture them and they will all be global successes. Finally, please do reach out asap, before we lose our young geniuses to the West (USA) or East (Singapore).
On the contrary, people are actually working with government & law enforcement who are not a participants of any conferences. I have know better people, techies & hackers who prefer to remain backstage & work hard. I work for government & you don’t know me }:-)
I agree and yes there are thousands of folks who do not attend conferences and are still on top of their skills. I did not mean to say that if you are attending these Cons in India or abroad you get skilled I wrote this to highlight the recognition garnered by this small section of the community. And yes, I may not have known you but if you do allow, it will be my pleasure to connect with you. I have the utmost respect for folks like yourself who work with LEA and for the many ‘good men’ in the establishment because of whom we survive and thrive. Best wishes in your endeavors, my friend, and thanks for stopping by to read this piece. Your comments are welcome and will look forward to more gens from your end.
My exact sentiment is into this article. I thought of this since many times and you exactly echoed the sentiments Sir… Thanks for bringing this to public notice….way to go Indian security communities and technocrats…. Thanks….