SANS Cyber Safari October 2026 Community Nights

Four evenings. Four of our instructors. One community. Join us across October for four SANS Community Nights in Riyadh, covering the pressure points every security leader in the region is working through right now: quantum risk in operational technology, Trends in mobile threats, what the 2026 CTI Survey says about the state of threat intelligence, and how to bring AI agents into a security team without losing control of them. Attend in person or virtually. Pick one night or come to all four.

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Join Us for SANS Community Nights

SANS Community Nights are a great way to stay in touch with your local InfoSec community and to hear the latest in technical wizardry, industry intelligence, and thought leadership from our amazing instructors.

Come meet the SANS team and experience SANS learning in person.

Please bring your ID for registration.

Location:

Hyatt Regency Riyadh Olaya & Virtual (AST) Olaya St, Al Olaya, Riyadh 12213 Location Map

Schedule

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Registration, drinks, and canapes

Monday, October 5, 2026

05:00PM - 05:30PM AST

In-Person

The Invisible Clock: Securing OT Assets Against the Quantum Computing Revolution

Operational technology was never designed for the threat landscape it now sits in. Three forces are closing in at once: AI-driven attacks that move faster than any human response, identity hijacking that turns trusted access into the front door, and quantum computing that puts a hard expiry date on the cryptography protecting industrial systems today.

This session unpacks how those forces are reshaping OT security in practice, and why post-quantum resilience is a programme to start now rather than a problem to schedule later. OT assets have refresh cycles measured in decades, which means the cryptographic decisions made this year will still be live when quantum capability arrives.

Ideal for OT and ICS security leaders, CISOs, architects, and risk owners across critical infrastructure and industrial environments.

Monday, October 5, 2026

05:30PM - 06:30PM AST

In-Person & Virtual

Presented by

Silvano Sogus

Security Expert at ShardSec

Networking & Entertainment

Monday, October 5, 2026

06:30PM - 07:00PM AST

In-Person

Registration, drinks, and canapes

Monday, October 12, 2026

05:00PM - 05:30PM AST

In-Person

Encryption Every Cybersecurity Pro Should Understand

Anyone in the infosec industry for 5 minutes has had a training lecture on encryption. The vast majority have walked away scratching their head. Encryption seems like a seriously complicated subject, and it is, but only if you are building a new algorithm. The types and understanding are not. They just haven’t been presented properly. You have heard of symmetric encryption, asymmetric encryption, and hashing. But what are they under the hood, and where do you use each of them?

You will leave this presentation absolutely understanding all three, as well as non-repudiation. We will go through where each is used, and when and how they all get used together. Encryption is everywhere. We need to understand what is happening and be able to explain it.

As an added bonus, we will actually be doing the math behind the Diffie-Hellman key exchange BY HAND, just to show that it is not a scary and mysterious as people think. Given that you perform the Diffie-Hellman key exchange many times every day, it is a good idea to understand it and know where it is happening.

Monday, October 12, 2026

05:30PM - 06:30PM AST

In-Person & Virtual

Presented by

Kevin Ripa

President at The Grayson Group of Companies

Networking & Entertainment

Monday, October 12, 2026

06:30PM - 07:00PM AST

In-Person

Registration, drinks, and canapes

Monday, October 19, 2026

05:00PM - 05:30PM AST

In-Person

Trends in mobile threats – from silly adware apps to mobile banking malware

Mobile malware is as actual as ever, with new malware families surfacing every month. The different goals of malware are much broader than simply stealing your pictures or emails.

In this session, we investigate all the different kinds of malware that are actively infecting devices, explain how they achieve the needed permissions, and discover why Android is much more susceptible to malware than iOS.

Monday, October 19, 2026

05:30PM - 06:30PM AST

In-Person & Virtual

Presented by

Jeroen Beckers

Mobile Security Expert at NVISO BE

Networking & Entertainment

Monday, October 19, 2026

06:30PM - 07:00PM AST

In-Person

Registration, drinks, and canapes

Monday, October 26 , 2026

05:00PM - 05:30PM AST

In-Person

Blockchains and Bitcoin

We have all heard of the blockchain. But what is it? We have all heard of Bitcoin, but, “I can’t invest in something I can’t hold”. What gives it value? How is it calculated? And how anonymous is it, really? All of these questions and more will be answered in this fast paced, but easy to understand lecture on what the blockchain is, how it is calculated, how a bitcoin gets mined or created, and how traceable it is.

Monday, October 26 , 2026

05:30PM - 06:30PM AST

In-Person & Virtual

Presented by

Kevin Ripa

President at The Grayson Group of Companies

Networking & Entertainment

Monday, October 26 , 2026

06:30PM - 07:00PM AST

In-Person

Meet the Speakers

Silvano Sogus

Security Expert at ShardSec

Silvano Sogus is the founder of ShardSec, a specialized cybersecurity practice focused on strategic advisory, security architecture, assurance, and leadership development, and he is an Associate Instructor for SANS.

Learn more

Andreas Sfakianakis

Cyber Threat Intelligence Expert at SAP

Andreas is a seasoned cyber threat intelligence professional with over 15 years in cybersecurity. He specializes in cyber threat analysis and building threat management programs.

Learn more

Jeroen Beckers

Mobile Security Expert at NVISO BE

Jeroen Beckers is a SANS instructor and Mobile Solution Lead at NVISO, specializing in Android and iOS security.

Learn more

Kevin Ripa

President at The Grayson Group of Companies

Kevin Ripa has transformed the global cybersecurity landscape through decades of frontline digital forensics, assisting law enforcement, governments, and Fortune 500 companies in unraveling sophisticated cyberattacks and nation-state threats.

Learn more

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SEC536: Adversarial AI - Penetration Testing AI Systems

SANS Cyber Safari October 2026 Community Nights

Join Us for SANS Community Nights

Schedule

Registration, drinks, and canapes

The Invisible Clock: Securing OT Assets Against the Quantum Computing Revolution

Networking & Entertainment

Registration, drinks, and canapes

Encryption Every Cybersecurity Pro Should Understand

Networking & Entertainment

Registration, drinks, and canapes

Trends in mobile threats – from silly adware apps to mobile banking malware

Networking & Entertainment

Registration, drinks, and canapes

Blockchains and Bitcoin

Networking & Entertainment

Meet the Speakers

Silvano Sogus

Andreas Sfakianakis

Jeroen Beckers

Kevin Ripa

Register In Person or Virtually

Monday, 5th October, 2026

Monday, 12th October, 2026

Monday, 19th October, 2026

Monday, 26th October, 2026

Register In-Person

Registration, drinks, and canapes

The Invisible Clock: Securing OT Assets Against the Quantum Computing Revolution

Networking & Entertainment

Registration, drinks, and canapes

Encryption Every Cybersecurity Pro Should Understand

Networking & Entertainment

Registration, drinks, and canapes

Trends in mobile threats – from silly adware apps to mobile banking malware

Networking & Entertainment

Registration, drinks, and canapes

Blockchains and Bitcoin

Networking & Entertainment