Plug into New York’s Infosec Community

Between the city’s size and the wide spectrum of the security industry, it’s easy to feel lost. Where are ‘your people?’ How can you find talks that interest you? You want to spend your time meeting and networking, not researching your options.

So, we put together a directory of all of the infosec gatherings, companies, and university programs in NYC that we know of at nyc-infosec.com.

Why’d we create this site?

We’re better than this. Today, when investors think ‘east coast infosec,’ they think ‘Boston.’ We believe that NYC’s infosec community deserves more recognition on the national and international stages. That will come as we engage with one another to generate more interesting work.

We need breaks from routine. It’s easy to stay uptown or downtown, or only go to forensics or software security meetings. If you don’t know what’s out there, you don’t know what you’re missing out on.

We all benefit from new ideas. That’s why we started Empire Hacking. We want to help more people learn about topics that excite and inspire action.

We want to coax academics off campus. A lot of exciting research takes place in this city. We want researchers to find the groups that will be the most interested in their work. Conversely, industry professionals have much to learn from emerging academic innovations and we hope to bring them together.

Check out a new group this month

Find infosec events, companies, and universities in the city on nyc-infosec.com. If you’re not sure where to start, we recommend:

Empire Hacking (new website!)
Information security professionals gather at this semi-monthly meetup to discuss pragmatic security research and new discoveries in attack and defense over drinks and light food.

New York Enterprise Information Security Group
Don’t be fooled by the word ‘enterprise.’ This is a great place for innovative start-ups to get their ideas in front of prospective early clients. David Raviv has created a great space to connect directly with technical people working at smart, young companies.

SummerCon
Ah, SummerCon. High-quality, entertaining talks. Inexpensive tickets. Bountiful booze. Somehow, they manage to pull together an excellent line-up of speakers each year. This attracts a great crowd, ranging from “hackers to feds to convicted felons and concerned parents.”

O’Reilly Security
Until now, New York didn’t really have one technical, pragmatic, technology-focused security conference. This newcomer has the potential to fill that gap. It looks like O’Reilly has put a lot of resources behind it. If it turns out well for them (fingers crossed), we hope that they’ll plan more events just like it.

What’d we miss?

If you know of an event that should be on the list, please let us know on the Empire Hacking Slack.