Consider supporting Cybersecurity Cares 2025. Help defenders support mental health, recovery, and diversity across our community.
All funds raised this year will be split evenly among these organizations:
The Diana Initiative
#MentalHealthHackers
@soberincyber
BlackGirlsHack / BGH Foundation
Women + Cybersecurity = Women's Society of Cyberjutsu
All orgs are linked at the Fundrazr link
Big thanks to Joan Goodchild for guest authoring this insightful blog post on the #SoberInCyber website!
Our poor lil blog had gotten dusty, and Joan is breathing some much-needed new life into it as we round out #DryJuly.
Much appreciation also goes out to the amazing community leaders who shared their thoughts on mental health in #cybersecurity for the article:
Josh Turley from #MentalHealthHackers, George Kamide from #MindOverCyber, and Peter Coroneos from #Cybermindz. 💜
Check it out at https://www.soberincyber.org/post/why-sobriety-matters-mental-health-and-wellness-in-cybersecurity
🚨 Big News from Mental Health Hackers! 🚨
We’re launching an online Silent Auction to support our mission of bringing mental health awareness and resources to the cybersecurity community.
🔥 Want limited-edition challenge coins?
💻 Hunting for unique electronic badges or Wi-Fi hacking gear?
🎯 100% of proceeds go directly to supporting mental health initiatives, workshops, and wellness spaces at hacker conferences like DEF CON, BSides, and more.
🗓️ Auction Launch: 7/30
🌐 Profile link: https://www.ebay.com/usr/hackershealth
🖱️ Bid. Win. Let’s hack the stigma—together. 💚
#MentalHealthHackers #HackTheStigma #DEFCON33 #CyberSecurity #SilentAuction #BlueTeamVillage #MentalHealthAwareness #badgelife #derbycon
💙 Can you believe it’s already been a week since #BSidesBoulder25? We had an absolute blast and hope you did too! From experimenting with NFC badges, lock picking, and sticker swaps, to welcoming #MentalHealthHackers and @Cyversity Denver into the fold — we tried a few new things this year and you helped us raise the bar. With 200 tickets sold (up 50 from last year!), this was our biggest #BSidesBoulder yet. Huge thanks to everyone who came out, especially our friends from BSides Colorado Springs and BSides Denver for showing up and showing love. 💙
We're also proud to share that through our partnership with Boulder Food Rescue, we were able to provide ~50 meals to those in need. 🙌
Help us make next year even better by filling out the feedback form before 30 June: https://forms.gle/n1RgEN8G6NU9nSceA. Two folks will be randomly selected for a small thank-you prize. Don’t miss your chance to help shape the future of BSidesBoulder!🎁
A huge shout out again for our most excellent speakers and workshop hosts. You guys rock! Wendy Nather Andrew Brandt Anthony Galiette Ariel R.. Eric Harashevsky Gil Garcia Jibby Saetang
Nathan M. Natalie Somersall Ryan Thompson @yash Thapliyal John Doyle
Thank you for participating in our annual BSides event this year. In an effort to help us plan next year's event, we've created a short survey to capture your reflections of the event itself. We are incentivizing feedback capture this year by providing some small prizes to a selected number of randomized individuals who complete it. Completing this survey should take approximately 5-10 minutes. We have broken the survey out into three sections to capture overall sentiment with: 1) logistics, communications, and general sentiment; 2) talks, workshop, and happy hour; 3) potential modifications for next year We kindly ask that when providing feedback for speaker talks or workshops we'd like to hear what works and what didn't. When providing critiques, please attempt to make them constructive.
Incoming shorthand...Tomorrow's #BSidesBoulder25 is sold out! Walk-ins may be available, no guarantee of a shirt, official stickers, or sandwiches. TL;DR topical blurbs:
—🆕 Sticker swap table + mini-lock picking village.
—📢 Day of comms. We will use non-LinkedIn social media and QR codes at the event. @bsidesboulder
@infosec.exchange @bsidesboulder @bsidesboulder.bsky.social
—🅿️ Parking. Lot 414 is the primary. Lots 406 and 415 can be used for overflow. Details with a promo code and parking map available on our website.
—🍻Happy Hour. Location: Sanitas Brewing Company. Sponsored by TenEleven Technology. Please RSVP: https://events.1011vc.com/June132025
—🙏 2025 Sponsors. Thank you!! @rule4 Panther, @ARKA Group, LP, and Ten Eleven Ventures.
—🤝 2025 Partners. #MentalHealthHackers, #Cyversity-denver, @wicysorg, @kc7cyber, #BoulderFoodRescue, @DenverSec #OWASPDenver, #NoCoISSA.
Life’s journey often presents us with unexpected twists and turns, including the notorious midlife crisis. While it might seem daunting, this phase can be an opportunity for profound growth, rediscovery, and reinvigoration. In this blog, Read more…
*This campaign ONLY*
If you decide to support our fundraiser, and send me a picture of you in the shirt (or proof of purchase, I'm no weirdo...well not that kind anyway),
I'll also send you out a MHH challenge coin!!!
https://www.bonfire.com/we-are-the-village-mental-health-hackers
#mentalhealthhackers #mentalhealth #infosec #nonprofit #cybersecurity #spreadthelove
I played basketball tonight against my gut instinct to bail on playing after initially committing. I'm big, slow, I can't shoot worth 🫘 and I hurt my knee last time I tried to play.
However, I was delighted to find myself feeling genuinely good at the end of the two hours. The sort of good I haven't felt much lately. Driving home I reflected on how the natural endorphins I was feeling have been fighting a stiff uphill battle these last couple of years. However, playing tonight, for whatever stupid reason, opened up a "I feel good" pocket of anti-depression.
I'm well aware I've been in a mild to moderate state of depression pretty consistently since 2020. Raising and schooling four kids in the pandemic at home while my wife was in nursing school full-time, and all the while running my own business with clients who are markedly more stressed during the pandemic themselves was enough to buckle me. Cancer, the resulting existential turmoil, moving, changing careers, and a whole huge heap of personal stress from another area of my life have felt like sledge hammer blows and left me metaphorically laying on the ground.
I've known the depression is there, in that regard I've been grateful to always be pretty in-tune with myself. Internal things don't sneak up on me very often. I've worked to use the best tools I know; I got back into counseling, I kept myself as physically active as my body and circumstances would allow, and I've tried to stay connected to others despite losing lots of personal connections these last few years. I've journaled and meditated, and some days I've just let myself crumble knowing I'd rebuild myself when the emotional winds were more favorable.
I'm honestly really proud of how well I've navigated my own internal turmoil these last few years. There's been a lot of times I've just wanted to throw up my hands and let my life collapse around me. I know my cracks have shown, and that has bugged me. I can see when people reassess me in the moments I don't measure up with how I present myself most of the time. But that's just a facet of being human.
I guess my point in all this is to write it down and share it for those who are stuck in their own fog of depression or mental struggle. Today, I found a small pocket of endorphins where my brain couldn't leave me feeling like things are just permanently gray, and that gift came from basketball, a sport I honestly kinda hate. But it came from saying "yes" as often as I could to what life tries to give me.
I think my depression will lift as I find a job, some personal issues stabilize, and I keep working my own side of the street in my life. I kinda hate my life, and I also kinda love my life right now, and the only thing that's going to shift that needle is my effort and the tick of time. So I'm going to keep mining life for the pockets of pleasure my brain and my soul needs. I hope you will too...♥️
I love EMDR trauma therapy. After 20 years of psychotherapy, talking and sharing so many bad emotions and memories, where I usually leave the therapy session worse then when I entered.. It is so refreshing to be guided DEEP into that emotional hell by my therapist, and then to specifically spend the last 10 minutes, healing. It is so fulfilling to experience.
Just a reminder... Infosec sucks sometimes. Make sure you take time for yourself!
Tooting from Caesar's Palace Qua Spa in Las Vegas.
nak
Sober in Cyber
infosystir
BSides Boulder
jade pixel
Michael Olsen
mauvehed 🐿️ (KØMVH)
NetSec Kahn 