Momentum, charity, and a deeper CTF: BSides Brisbane 2023

2023 felt like the year the numbers caught up with the vibe: 478 tickets sold and roughly 400 of you checking in on the day, strong for a time when plenty of people were still figuring out how they felt about crowded rooms.

What we loved when we looked around the venue was the mix: students, architects, SOC analysts, career-changers, old friends. We’re not trying to run a single-track vendor story. We’re trying to run Brisbane’s BSides, and days like that remind us we’re on the right track.

Presenters

Huge thank you to our speakers. You set the tone for the whole event.

Presenter	Title
Katherine Mansted	Bytes and Satellites: Geopolitical Contest in the Age of Cyber
Cole Cornford	How AI will fundamentally change our approach to AppSec
Shota Shinogi	Detecting Malicious PowerShell Scripts: Challenges and Solutions
Brendan Scarvel	Hacking the Netcomm NF20MESH Router
Gyle Delacruz	In the White Room with Black Curtains - We Play Cards Against Humanity
Gavin Dilworth	OT / ICS – Common mistakes and rapid ROI
Alex Desmond	How to start taking your TTX’s off the table.
Kristine Sihto	Lazy Writing: The Information Security Nightmare that is AI Generated Text
Ryan Williams	Hacking SS7 to save lives

VetsInCyber × BrothersNBooks

This year we also teamed up with VetsInCyber and BrothersNBooks on a book drive for service members, hospitals, and community libraries: reading as wellbeing, and as an on-ramp into security careers. Between all of you who chipped in, we got around 20 books moving to where they’d do some good.

Capture the Flag & hardware village

Nomad ran the CTF again: jeopardy-style challenges plus a dedicated Active Directory track for teams who wanted something closer to “real work.” On the side, the hardware village kept things tactile: boards to poke at, flags to hunt, and plenty of “just one more try” energy.

Sponsors

These sponsors helped us run BSides Brisbane 2023. Thank you.

Photos from the day

CTF and hardware village snaps from 2023.