San Francisco Bay Area Security Community

Each week, we’ll highlight a major city in the US and cover the places and events you can go to in that area to get your security information fix. This post is part of the information security communities.

The Bay Area scene is very active and covers a broad spectrum, so expect local professional groups presence to be thick.

• OWASP Bay Area – According to their official page the last meeting was on June 22. To keep abreast of any future events or doings, it might be a good decision to join the mailing list.
• iSec Open Security Forum – Not really a specific chapter for a national organization, iSec just happens to have a San Francisco based office aside form branches in Seattle and New York. Call it an open venue for security professionals to exchange notes and hash out ideas. Visit their site to access a wealth of resources.
• ISSA  San Francisco Bay Area Chapter – Have a meeting on September 7 and an Incident Response Management course the following month. These guys are very active.
• ISACA San Francisco Chapter – There’s a Fall Conference on November 7 to 9. Membership is open and there’s a newsletter available for subscription.
• San Francisco Bay Area Infragard Chapter – The latest quarterly meeting is on August 18. As Infragard chapters go, these guys regularly coordinate with the San Fran FBI office. Go visit the site for resources and an official chapter-specific news blog.

For some reason, the local meetings aren’t as prolific this time around.

• SF2600 – First meeting of the month already happened last Friday. Stay tune for September then! Visit the site for the good stuff, i.e. info on future meets.

As far as databases and other search tools go, there’s just a single registered hackerspace in the Bay Area.

• Noisebridge – HQ is over at Mission Street. They’ve got an extensive selection of projects and lots of extracurricular activities for skills development. Check the site for a schedule breakdown.

Last, a few big security events.

• SF ISACA Fall Conference – Won’t be till November and registration isn’t even open yet. But mark this on your calender if interested.
• IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy – Established in 1980, the yearly event takes place in Oakland. Registration is still open but is classified ‘nearly full.’
• USENIX Security Symposium – Kicks off in San Francisco this week. Visit the site for inof, schedule, and resources.
• RSAConference – Actually happened all the way back in March. But it’s still on same time next year.

There might be a few groups and events we missed. If so, feel free to chime in at the comments.

To visit an older version of this community page, go here.