In this interview, Gareth Dance, Conference Director, EMEA, SANS Institute, talks about SANS Secure Europe 2012.

How would you introduce SANS Secure Europe 2012 to someone who hasn't attended before?

SANS Secure Europe 2012 is one of the region's largest infosec training events featuring 8 courses running over a two week period from the 7th to 19th in Amsterdam. Secure Europe has some of the most respected security experts as instructors offering courses include ethical hacking, audit, cloud and virtualization security.

Have you made any conceptual changes for this year's edition of the event?

This is the largest Secure Europe event we have ever held with several new areas such as the private cloud security and information systems auditing courses.

In parallel with this year's event, we are also running NetWars, a competition where participants compete in a mock environment to test their defensive, analysis, and offensive cyber skills to fight off intruders while trying to take over other target systems and networks.


What security threats have shaped the SANS Secure Europe 2012 agenda?

Emerging areas like cloud and virtualization security are high on the agenda and a new 6 day course that provides in-depth security training on both these topics has proven popular with a flood of early registrations. Even though the overall economy has slowed across the region, security threats have actually increased and the course has a much wider remit than last year.

What topics will your speakers focus on? What's "hot" this year?

Each course is run by a subject matter expert and the sessions are designed to be hands on. The classrooms in most cases feature state of the art tools and each session is more about an exchange of information and practical application. The sessions are more than just speakers talking solely about the theory. Many of the courses will touch on securing and analyzing new end points within the evolving IT landscape.

There are many quality information security trainings all over the world. In your opinion, what makes SANS unique in comparison to other events?

SANS Secure Europe is more than just a training event and anybody who attended last year can testify to the unique atmosphere. The professional background of the instructors and the depth to which the courses have been evolved to keep them current is without equal in our industry.

Also when you bring some of Europe's best infosec professionals into the same environment where they can learn and share knowledge with peers and industry experts, it creates an opportunity not to be missed!