WordCamp Orange County: End User Awareness

So this is kind of cool, my submission to talk at WordCamp Orange County was accepted.

What makes it extra cool is that with the number of WordCamps I have attended, this is my first time speaking. Don’t get me wrong, if you have spent time with me at the after party or any of the socials, you know talking is not my problem — especially if on a subject I am passionate about.

What most don’t realize though, is that I was only recently introduced to WordPress and its communities (January of 2010). That’s when my brother-in-law, Dre Armeda, introduced me to the platform and all the other goodness that comes with it (i.e., tacos and fizzypops). Since, it has been an exciting roller coaster of an experience.

In that time I have been part of the organizing team for two WordCamps and engaged with two start-ups, one that was built around offering platform specific service and the other that focuses specifically on web-security. The latter is what I’ll spend my time talking about at WordCamp Orange County.

I hope the uniqueness in my presentation is in my “newbie” insight into WordPress and Web Malware. I think its often easy to forget what it is not to know, and as I am just learning, how can I forget.  I obviously plan to leverage elements that we at Sucuri like to present on, similar to the ones found in the video titled “Lockdown WordPress — A Security Webinar with Dre Armeda”, but I hope to figure out a way to help bring the point home and talk a bit on what I see as the True Vulnerability with WordPress. The idea is to educate, engage and encourage change in the way end-users manage their websites.

My Presentation

The purpose of this talk is to discuss end-user security and review the latest trends and challenges we see everyday at Sucuri. It will statistics on the latest malware trends and include some preventive techniques. Geared towards end-users, the presentation will focus on why you need to keep your WordPress installation and plugins up to date, and reviewing vulnerabilities in older versions. I hope to include both process and theory, because while theory is good, practical application is better. The intent of the presentation is to education and arm the attendees with the knowledge and tools they need to stay safe on the web.

Here’s a link to my slides.