Security conference - BSIDES GALWAY February 22nd, 2025

It’s been a couple of years since I moved to Galway, and I’m still absolutely thrilled with my decision!

During the past few months, I had the chance to meet some awesome people at a local security meetup called burbsec. It was a nice experience—sharing ideas, meeting new faces, and of course, enjoying a few beers ;-) !!

Now, some of these folks are organizing a security conference called BSIDES Galway, happening on February 22nd, 2025!

The event will be held at the University of Galway and marks the very first local edition of the globally renowned BSIDES format, which takes place in cities all over the world.

The goal? To create a welcoming space where people can dive into fascinating sessions, exchange ideas, and have a blast—all while focusing on cybersecurity.

If you’re excited about joining, make sure to check out the official event website!

Right now, the Call for Papers (CFP) is open, and there are still opportunities for sponsorship.

Just a couple of days ago, the organizers dropped the first batch of early-bird tickets, and they SOLD OUT within hours!

So if you’re interested in attending, submitting a talk, or becoming a sponsor, head over to the website for all the details. I can’t wait to see some of you there! 

Some links:

Event site: https://bsidesgalway.com/menu

Tickets: https://ti.to/bsides-galway/bsides-galway-2025

Social: https://x.com/BSidesGalway

CyberArk Conjur 13.4 - the evolution contues

About a month ago, a new release of Conjur Enterprise was launched, now at version 13.4, bringing exciting new features to the product!

Here are my top 3 favorites, though there are many more updates, which you can find here:

• Sync of empty safes from Vault: This is essential for managing policy creation through automation.
• Dynamic application configuration: It is now possible to modify various Conjur configuration parameters that previously had to be set when creating the container! Now they are all included in the usual conjur.yml.
• Extended ESO support: Now the External Secrets Operator can use regex in findByName and findByTags.

As has been the case for several releases, I’d like to reiterate that CyberArk’s development of Conjur is moving quickly, and with each release, the product becomes more and more complete. 

Well done, CyberArk!

cryptsetup, how to protect entire disks or USB keys, notes on technical_notebook

I have been using an encrypted USB drive for several years, which unlocks with biometric access. In recent days, I have wondered how to do the same with other disks or USB keys.

The answer is cryptsetup, an utility included in most Linux distributions. I have done some tests and documented how to use it in this repository, which I have named technical_notebook.

I will use technical_notebook as a notebook; it will contain commands, concepts, or useful links. The purpose of the repo is to not forget them, have them easily available, and perhaps help someone if they have my same needs.

KubeCon 2024: why attending a conference is important and some useful resources

Last week I had the pleasure of attending KubeCon 2024 EU in Paris, which is why I must begin these lines by thanking SIGHUP for giving me the opportunity to participate in the second consecutive KubeCon, THANK YOU!

I decided to write these lines to try to motivate those who have never been to a large-scale event to participate!

In this case, size matters!

If you're involved in the cloud native world as a client, developer, consultant, or big vendor, you can't miss it! Colleagues, clients, partners, competitors, maintainers of small projects, volunteer committees, big corporations, they'll all be there!

It's a unique opportunity to meet people, talk, engage, and establish relationships.

In many cases, you might come across other attendees and simply by listening to them speak or explain their problems or needs, new scenarios may unfold that you hadn't considered!

If you're in consulting or a client, you'll likely meet vendors you work with during the year in the showcase area, and it will probably be an opportunity to meet technicians, sales representatives, or executives who will then remember you or your company throughout the year.

The inevitable gadgets like t-shirts, socks, or stickers can be a pleasant additional incentive.

Education

Of course, a conference mainly means sessions!

You have the opportunity to listen to some of the most authoritative voices talking about the topics you work with, whether they're business or technical sessions!

Don't underestimate the chance to ask questions in the Q&A following the session or to have a chat with the speaker right after.

Community

KubeCon means community; let's not forget that CNCF projects are based on the open-source community, which you can collaborate with on many levels, and what better opportunity to meet and put a face to the people you may chat with during the year on Slack?

Immersing yourself in the community is a unique opportunity at the end of the first quarter that allows you to pause projects (as much as possible 😅), recharge your batteries, and come back charged and determined!

Resources

Whether you were present or not, you certainly couldn't have followed all the sessions that interested you or already found them on social media! CNCF records all sessions, provides videos and presentations, practically in real-time: WOW.

Within the conference agenda, you can find everything; the videos are obviously available on the CNCF's YouTube channel, and there's a photo album of over 5000 photos to consult!

Are you already looking forward to planning the next conference?

You can find CNCF-sponsored conferences on this page; I'll be present at KCD Italy in June in Bologna, and you? 

CyberArk Conjur 13.2 released: another step in the right direction

One week ago CyberArk released another update for Conjur Enterprise, which now has reached the 13.2 version and this was definitely another step in the right direction!

This release includes the usual bugfix, expands the integration of Conjur ( eg now OpenShift 4.14 is supported) but most importantly adds 2 super interesting features:

• CyberArk Vault Synchronizer high availability support

• Enhanced Conjur to support Container Storage Interface (CSI) driver

Synchronizer high availability enhances the DR strategy of Conjur and now it's possible to setup a "passive" Synchronizer in DR site aware of the status of the primary Synchronizer that comes to live in case of a failure. 

This feature consents an optimization of the resources and of the strategy building the DR for the customers!

The enhanced support to Container storage interface driver, consent to Conjur to inject directly into the correct pod the secrets bypassing the need to have a sidecar/init container. 

This new feature consents customers to optimize the resource usage on the clusters and continue to fetch secrets securely.  

CyberArk Conjur is in constant evolution release by release, and in my opinion, the evolution of Conjur during the last year has been terrific. Big kudos to CyberArk !

Asa final reminder, CyberArk Conjur is a secrets manager and is available in 3 different versions:

• Enterprise

• Opensource

• Cloud

Kubeweekly - Get weekly Kubernetes news in your inbox

Hello there, as I wrote here, I've always been a community guy, so I've found a new way to contribute: during the first half of 2024, I'll be one of the editors who helps to find the content of Kubeweekly.

Kubeweekly is a newsletter that brings to your inbox, a curated selection of news, tweets, articles, or videos about Kubernetes and the CNCF landscape.

If you like to check the result or join the mailing list, please check this page!

KCD 2024 Italy announced - Bologna 20 June 2024

Hello there, just a quick post, KCD Italy has been announced and will be in Bologna on 20th Jun 2024!

I'm not directly involved in the organization of this event but my company is, so I'm publishing this post trying to help !

The CFPs is opened and available at this link, english session are welcome!

The hunting for new sponsor is also still opened so in case, please contact one of the organizer or reach me and I'll keep you in contact with them.

KCDs are events organized by the community supported by CNCF