The afternoon sessions of the symposium were conducted by real people (not that vendor representatives aren’t real, but you know what I mean) and were far more helpful than the morning sessions (the keynote being the exception). First, I went to MORENet’s presentation on securing IIS 6 and Windows 2003. Steve Massman (a former co-worker of mine) ran through the basic steps to secure and maintain a Web server on Windows 2003. The logging information – tools and techniques to get logs out of the “standard” paths and into your email so that you actually look at them occasionally – was particularly helpful.
I missed the next session because I was deep into conversation with a gentleman getting ready to switch to Exchange. He was watching me check my work email via the web browser on my phone and had LOTS of questions about what all was included in the Exchange Server package.
The last session of the day was amazing. The session was titled Security Awareness, a subject that has been coming up repeatedly for me in the last few weeks and one I definitely wanted to attend. The session began with a discussion of why we should be stressing security awareness (and the recent publicity around Megan Meier’s death was brought up and used as an example here and throughout the session) at the earliest age possible. Our job, as Internet Citizens, is to make sure that young people are aware of everything from traditional malware (viruses, spam, etc.) to digital stranger danger to porn to cyber-bullies and how to combat/stay-away-from each of them. To help us do our jobs, the session included LOTS of resources for security awareness (look for them in an upcoming Security Awareness post) and a CD of even more resources.
After that session, my brain hurt, so I said goodbye to a few people and left for home, ready to curl up in my recliner, play WoW and not think for a good few hours…
