Our second conference, and our first in Maryland
We brought Glass Firewall to the University of Maryland in College Park on November 1, 2024. It was an afternoon for women who wanted to try cybersecurity for the first time, sharpen skills they had already started building, or meet more people doing this work.
The schedule moved from the fundamentals into practice. Dr. Hanan Hibshi opened up the world of OWASP and common web vulnerabilities. Gunner Andrews led a reconnaissance workshop, Jasmin Landry dug into web vulnerability testing, and Catherine Cassell finished the technical program with a team hardware hacking exercise.
Laptops open, questions welcome
This was not a sit quietly and take notes kind of event. Attendees worked through examples, tried techniques for themselves, and asked questions as they came up. The hardware session was especially physical and collaborative, with teams examining devices together instead of treating security as something that only happens on a screen.
That hands-on format gave beginners a way into the material without watering it down. No one had to arrive already knowing the vocabulary or pretending they understood every tool. The point was to learn by doing it with people nearby who could help.
Talking honestly about careers
The day closed with a Women in Security leadership panel. Panelists talked about career growth and the barriers they had encountered along the way. It was a useful counterpart to the workshops: technical skills matter, but so do good colleagues, candid advice, and knowing who you can call when you get stuck.
One comment from the event has stayed with us. Kate Torelli of Capital One said that the women she spoke with were interested in security testing, but many genuinely did not know where to begin. That is exactly the gap Glass Firewall is meant to address.
Capital One, GitHub, HackerOne, and Salesforce helped us keep the conference free, and the University of Maryland gave the event a home in the DC region.
Continue exploring: Visit the 2024 event page and read HackerOne’s 2024 highlights.
Program highlights
OWASP and vulnerability basics
Dr. Hanan Hibshi broke down common vulnerability classes and made web application risk easier to understand.
Recon workshop
Gunner Andrews showed how a researcher gathers and sorts the information that can lead to a useful testing path.
Web vulnerability testing
Jasmin Landry walked through the process of spotting and investigating web security issues.
Hands-on hardware hacking
Catherine Cassell led a team workshop that put real hardware in participants' hands.
Photos from 2024
