Sec Nerds: The Conference
Sec Nerds: The Conference brings the Bay Area’s cybersecurity crowd together for a day of fresh research, sharp ideas, and plenty of hallway conversation. Hosted by Sec Nerds, the event will spotlight the latest security work from local Bay Area security nerds, with talks that dig into real-world threats, clever defenses, and the oddities that make infosec such a fascinating field.
Whether you spend your days wrangling vulnerabilities, building safer systems, or just enjoy a good rabbit hole, this is a chance to hear what local researchers are uncovering and swap stories with the people doing the work. Expect a packed day of practical insights, new perspectives, and a little bit of nerdy chaos in the best possible way.
www.secnerdssf.com/thecon
Schedule (Saturday May 30, 2026)
Time Speaker Title
9:30 - Coffee Cart - Sponsored by ClearVector
10:00—Opening Remarks
10:05 - Emily Choi-Greene Keynote — The New SDLC: When vibecoding breaks all process
10:45 - Eric Chiang - On SAML
11:15 - Matthew Conway - Who Is KIM? Applying ACH to Attribution
11:45 - Vidya Bodepudi - High-Performance Secret Harvesting: Escaping the Regex Trap
12:15 - Call for Participation - Vidya Bodepudi - A survey on burnout in InfoSec, Michael Cartsonis, Srajan Gupta - An Introduction to project OASIS
12:45 — LUNCH - Sponsored by Red Hat
13:15 - Caitlin Montgomery - You've Got Mail: Using OSINT To Analyze and Investigate Suspicious Emails
13:45 - Cassie Crossley - The Silent Fix: How Open Source Maintainers Accidentally Create a PreCVE Attack Window
14:15 - Matthew Garrett - Bearer tokens suck and we can do better
14:45 — BREAK
15:00 - Anshu Gupta - AI Biodefense: Preparing for future AI capabilities in biology
15:30 - Akanksha Pathak - The Model Is Quietly Drifting (And No One Notices Until It's Too Late)
16:00 - Tom Goodheart - Declarative Destruction: Retiring my ParrotVM for NixOS
16:30 - Hilliary Lipsig - The Cyber Riposte: Using Fencing Strategy and Predictive AI to Outsmart the Adversary
17:00—CLOSING REMARKS
18:00 - Afterparty at Irish Bank - Sponsored by Pacific Hackers