Day 1
I started the day by grabbing breakfast at around 7:30 am at the MGM grand. After breakfast, I returned to my room and got my things together. The walk to Mandalay Bay isn't too bad as there is a tram at Excalabor that will take you to Mandalay in about 3 minutes. Keep in mind, however, that it may take a while to get to the station. I waited about 15 minutes for the tram to arrive, unsure why. Once you get to Mandalay bay, you'll see the massive group of people wearing primarily black t-shirts and jeans heading to registration. Just follow them. I arrived at registration at about 9:10 am by the time the tram arrived. The wait to get my badge was about 45 minutes long. I advise you to get there 30 minutes before registration opens so you aren't late for your class.
All the classes require you to bring a laptop. I can only speak for this class specifically, but you will want something powerful enough to be able to run a virtual machine. The other things I threw in my backpack were the chargers for my work and personal cell phone and my laptop charger. I forgot to bring one but a wireless mouse, 6 hours a day on a laptop, you'll want to use that over the trackpad.
As someone that uses two monitors in my office, I hate only having one when I travel doing cybersecurity-related work. So I threw in my bag for the trip a mobile second monitor that I got as a gift. It connects with a single USB-C cable for both data and power. The second monitor sped up my productivity in class by putting the notes on one screen and working on another. A monitor like this may be worth investing in as they are around 200 dollars.
photo credit: lepow.com
The class that I took was the Black Belt Web Application Security by NotSoSecure. The course is very informative, and the content is tailored for Pen testers. I'm getting into Bug bounties soon, and I think it will be beneficial. They provide you with PowerPoint slides and a folder of programs for all the modules. At the end of each day, they also offer an answer guide with a walkthrough for each challenge. I didn't take any notes and could just focus on the labs.
About 4 hours into the course, they also provide lunch. You get an hour and a half. This is a great time to network and meet some new people. I met a man from Italy that was in penetration testing. The conversation was more about Italy than computer security, but it was interesting to hear about his country and what cyber security is like over there. I also got invited to 2 networking parties as well, sadly they will be the last day of blackhat when I'm leaving.
Once the class ended at 7 pm, I went out to get dinner and relax while writing this blog post. I will get everything together for tomorrow as class begins at 9 am and with only a few breaks, you don't have time to return to your room to get something you forgot.
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