International Conference on Cyber Security 2012 and "hunters"

Overall impression….meh. It was decent for a first year conference. Oh wait this is its 3rd. That there was a Cyber Security Tutorial before the first actual day of the conference should have been a little telling. Presenters were also only given 30 minutes so not much ability to dive deeply. I think there was more of a focus on law enforcement cyber concepts and general cyber research than anything else which absolutely has a place…..but not for where I am and what I’m doing. If it required a clearance it would probably be a conference I’d like to have happen twice a year given the areas the speakers came from. Ah well. I also hate to knock presenters as on some level it takes some stones to stand up before folks and speak. At one point I did see someone take their iPad, take a picture of one of the presenters as they droned on and on and used some movie special effects app to blow them up. Indeed sir, indeed.

One thing I did find myself thinking about at the airport was the idea of a Cyber Warfighter
That wasn't necessarily part of the conference discussion but one thought leads to another etc. There are a lot of concepts wrapped up into those two words depending on your background. Part of what got me thinking about that was we have an open slot on the team (being filled internally) which lends itself to asking what sort of person you look for. Engineers and SMEs and architects and such have their place but you also need someone(s) who can operate in a somewhat ad-hoc way and find strange stuff a’happen’n that warrants a closer look. The term I’ve heard starting a few months ago that apparently is making the rounds since I heard it again a few times this last week is a “hunter.” Nice concept but the term is sort of goofy. I mean I seriously –

Someone: “What do you do for a living?”

Me: “I’m a cyber hunter”

Someone:”…..”

In humoring myself I digress. You should have seen some of the stuff I edited out. Here’s the thing though - I’m not overly sure the private sector, generally speaking, needs cyber warfighters in an offensive sort of capacity. There are elements of cyber warfighting that could and should happen. Maybe there is a national/law enforcement level scaling effect where that title and implied activity were to take place. And we need em – no doubt.

So what do we call hunters? Has anyone come up with a name for us?