Being from the Louisville metro area (and recently having moved back with my family), Derbycon is one of the highlights of my year. The general conference ran from Friday, October 5th, to Sunday, October 7th, at a brand new location, the Louisville Downtown Marriott! Every previous year, the neighboring Hyatt has hosted it, but the move meant a bigger venue with more rooms for all the activities. Despite more space, the Derbycon team actually decides not to significantly increase the number of tickets sold, in order to keep the smaller, more familial feel. I really like this about Derbycon and the crammed, chaotic atmosphere is one of the reasons I haven’t been to DEFCON yet…though I think I’m going to finally make myself go to it next year, just to get one under my belt.
For only about a grand more than a con ticket, you have the opportunity to sign up for one of several excellent training courses that run on the Wednesday and Thursday before the conference. And trust me, $1000 might sound like a lot, but this is a steal compared to what you’ll pay for courses like this at SANS or Blackhat. Last year, I took @FuzzyNop’s Modern Red Team Immersion Bootcamp, which was very heavily focused on open-source intelligence (OSINT) gathering, selecting good spear phishing targets, and crafting convincing phishes. This year, I went towards the more technical side of red teaming with Silent Break’s Dark Side Ops 2: Adversary Simulation.
Dan Helton's Blog 