DDOS!

Whether you know it or not (with or without your consent!), IT Security is part of your job ( https://www.itbusinessedge.com/slideshows/five-reasons-why-information-security-is-everyones-job.html ). With greater adoption of DevSecOps, security and developers need to work together closely and a proven method of working out roadblocks from the workflow is learning about the "pain of others":

https://about.gitlab.com/2019/07/15/global-developer-report

In line with that, we'll be doing a joint meetup with our friends from the PHP Meetup for August. Chris Holland ( https://www.phparch.com/community/chris-holland/ ) is an excellent speaker and seasoned Security guru who can do the deep dive, and then some, on a particularly unpleasant attack vector: Distributed Denial of Service or DDOS.

October 2016's attack on Dyn's DNS infrastructure was a bad wake-up call to the online community at-large, depriving us access to some of the online destinations and applications we use every day, thereby confronting us with stark reality of the ever-present and ever-growing threat of DDoS Attacks.

As we look at the role that 'Internet of Things' devices played in the attack against Dyn, as well as the attack against Krebs prior to it, we will dive into the DDoS attacks Threat Landscape: Symptoms, Motivations, Business Impact & Attack Vectors. Having thereby gained a better understanding of our exposure to these threats, we'll then explore Defensive Countermeasures with a strong emphasis on preparedness ahead of these attacks, including:

> Reducing Attack Surface
> Monitoring: Availability, Performance & Search Engine Visibility
> DNS Redundancy Planning
> Web Application Scaling Strategies
> Mitigation Vendor Fit Assessment
> Attack Mitigation

Attendees should walk out of this presentation with:

> A better understanding of what DDoS attacks are and how they work.
> A better understanding of their exposure to such attacks.
> A set of concrete steps to better prepare ahead of an attack for more effective mitigation.

A couple of links for you to get more of a backgrounder and come up with questions for the Q/A session:
https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/ddos?tab=Votes
https://securelist.com/ddos-report-q1-2019/90792

Please step up for food sponsorship ($100 only!; just hit up one of the organizers) so you and your fellow geeks can enjoy pizza and drinks (otherwise we'll have chips & salsa).