David Klassen

Mentorship

SANS Mentor BCIT

In 2010 I offered to help mentor a BCIT CST Student in their half year program. I was excited to take part as I found my career quite rocky through the dot-bomb and what has since followed. I have tried to stay in touch with this individual as much as I felt would be welcome. Surprisingly I found myself to be in a position of being a protege and mentored by some senior engineering staff, from 2012-2015 for the cause of Internet/Web/Cloud Security.

In 2013 I offered to help SANS Mentor security concerned professionals with the SANS 542: Web App Penetration Testing and Ethical Hacking course. On a part-time basis I attempted to generate interest in the area of web application security assessment (ie. legal and ethical hacking practices) in the Vancouver Canada area, and market SANS as a source of training materials and advice for interested parties. Generating interest in this space in the Vancouver socio-economic market was not easy, and no official classes were held. I did however make every attempt to explore how I could legitimize this market in the Vancouver area and help others find the extra bit of training (and/or reputation) required to enter into this particular area of technical work.

Memberships

OWASP Security BSides

When it came to reviewing new research in the space certain academic research sites became important to me, however in terms of consulting with real companies I have found the work and support of OWASP to be quite compelling in terms of communicating directly to Mobile/Web Application development groups and/or staff. To be quite frank OWASP is much more in your face and can help create security awareness in development groups not just the management: To be honest given it is much harder today to have a silo role that does not involve technology decisions, I believe OWASP speaks to the heart of today's business in the software sector, with a wide variety of materials and interfaces that provide members with the ability to learn/contribute:

It is also important to be able to challenge your local community concerning the security concepts you are encountering. I have found the Security B-Sides conference an excellent place to receive new local incites and dialog with fellow security practicioners. The B-Sides Vancouver conference is also a great place to communicate your own ideas to a larger local community.