Every year, the best security talent you've never recruited spends a weekend in Rochester.
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Every year, the best security talent you've never recruited spends a weekend in Rochester. I just got back from ISTS, 15 years running now, and I want to talk about what companies are missing by not showing up to events like this.
ISTS 2026: Red Teams, Rochester, and Good Conversations
Every year I make the trip up to Rochester for ISTS (the Information Security Talent Search), put on by RITSEC, the student cyber group at RIT. My first one was back in 2010, which means I've been doing this for fifteen years now.
(www.linkedin.com)
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R relay@relay.infosec.exchange shared this topic
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Every year, the best security talent you've never recruited spends a weekend in Rochester. I just got back from ISTS, 15 years running now, and I want to talk about what companies are missing by not showing up to events like this.
ISTS 2026: Red Teams, Rochester, and Good Conversations
Every year I make the trip up to Rochester for ISTS (the Information Security Talent Search), put on by RITSEC, the student cyber group at RIT. My first one was back in 2010, which means I've been doing this for fifteen years now.
(www.linkedin.com)
@mubix I’ve been hearing more about ISTS from 0xTal0n in the Midwest CCDC Red Team discord, and I totally agree with your frustrations on getting more companies recruiting students from these competitions. Some of these students are extremely impressive.
Speaking as a former CCDC competitor and current volunteer, I think generally speaking companies have a way of thinking where “oh it’s just students doing some weekend competitions” and don’t understand how much work goes into training for the comps.
I’ve spent the past 3 years trying to make the competition better for students. I’m hoping to be able to take the improvements made, and showcase some work they did because there’s some that are batshit nuts (in the best ways!)
