Africa. The land of origin; the original unknown.
A story of a young pentester, going south over Earth's second largest continentuntil it doesn't quite meet the sea again - sun beaten Johannesburg, South Africa. Keeping him company is a MacBook and earphones.
Within the unibody aluminium case are his scripts and tools, but the experience here lies on is weightless.
The professional penetration testing scene in South Africa is not very big compared to US or the UK, but there are a number of internationally recognized folks based there.
There are a few security conferences in South Africa: ZAcon, B-sides and ITWEB Security Summit. ZaCon (ZAcon) isa community driven info sec conference. The aim is to build a better community of hackers in ZA, and provide a platform for up-n-coming speakers while still getting some inspiration from the greats. ZAcon has a "meet up" spin off called0xC0FFEE. 0xC0FFEE (0xC0FFEE) is a mostly monthly gathering where project ideas are shared, collaboration occurs and folk generally talk hack.
Then there's the general security conference ITWEB Security Summit 2012 (ITWEB Security Summit 2012) and B-sides Cape Town (B-sides Cape Town).
In this maturing region, where Internet adoption is growing at a breakneck speed, there are only a handful of companies that provide penetration testing or ethical hacking services – there's even fewer with a global footprint like ours.
Trustwave's presence in the region is already established, but for SpiderLabs with its first local and native Afrikaans-speaking technical consultant, its elite security team will be hitting the ground running. Backed by the resources of the global practice, this is truly a very exciting time and environment to be in.
Most likely it will not be long before he is joined by others as there are large numbers of organizations enjoying fast paced growth in the region, many of whom will turn to Trustwave to simplify their security challenges and help to secure their businesses.
It is with a sense of sun kissed enthusiasm that I sign off, and look forward to meeting some of you out there in conferences or in Trustwave's offices, wherever you are...
