SANS Eastern Province Community Nights — December 2026

Two evenings. One community. Join us across December for two SANS Community Nights in the Eastern Province with Jan D’Herdt. The first night asks whether your vendors are really inside your control. The second looks back at a year of AI-accelerated attacks and turns it into a budget case for 2027. Attend in person or virtually. Pick one night or join 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:

Novotel Dhahran Hotel and Residences Dhahran, Saudi Arabia & Virtual (AST) Location Map

Schedule

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Registration, drinks, and canapes

Monday, December 7, 2026

05:00PM - 05:30PM AST

In-Person

Should You Secure Your Vendors?

Organisations rely on third parties to operate and scale. Blind reliance introduces risk — and most vendor risk programmes are not built to catch it.

This session moves from awareness to action: why vendor risk matters, what current practice actually looks like, and what real-world breaches through the supply chain reveal about the gaps. It takes a hard look at the limitations of the security questionnaire as the default control, and where it delivers false comfort rather than assurance.

It closes on recommended improvements and the takeaways worth acting on — a case for rethinking how organisations assess and manage vendor relationships in an increasingly interconnected digital landscape.

Ideal for CISOs, third-party risk and procurement owners, GRC teams, and security leaders accountable for supply chain exposure.

Monday, December 7, 2026

05:30PM - 06:30PM AST

In-Person & Virtual

Presented by

Jan D'Herdt

CISO Advisor, Enterprise Security Architect

Networking & Entertainment

Monday, December 7, 2026

06:30PM - 07:00PM AST

In-Person

Registration, drinks, and canapes

Monday, December 14, 2026

05:00PM - 05:30PM AST

In-Person

2026 Retrospective and What to Budget for in 2027

2026 was a year of cyberattacks accelerated by AI — with root causes that look uncomfortably familiar.

Industry reporting shows record ransomware victim counts and a sharp rise in the number of active groups, with AI speeding up phishing and data triage. Yet the primary causes have not changed: exploited vulnerabilities and resource gaps.

Jan works through the year’s incidents, shows how closely they mirror breaches the industry has already lived through, and sets out what it takes to break the cycle — and what that should mean for your 2027 budget.

Ideal for CISOs, security leaders, and anyone building or defending a security budget for the year ahead.

Monday, December 14, 2026

05:30PM - 06:30PM AST

In-Person & Virtual

Presented by

Jan D'Herdt

CISO Advisor, Enterprise Security Architect

Networking & Entertainment

Monday, December 14, 2026

06:30PM - 07:00PM AST

In-Person

Meet the Speakers

Jan D'Herdt

CISO Advisor, Enterprise Security Architect

Jan D’Herdt is a SANS Certified Instructor teaching LDR512 and SEC566. With experience across Deloitte, IBM, and UCB, he helps organizations implement and transform the CISO organization, and align cybersecurity with governance and business risk.

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SEC536: Adversarial AI - Penetration Testing AI Systems

SANS Eastern Province Community Nights — December 2026

Join Us for SANS Community Nights

Schedule

Registration, drinks, and canapes

Should You Secure Your Vendors?

Networking & Entertainment

Registration, drinks, and canapes

2026 Retrospective and What to Budget for in 2027

Networking & Entertainment

Meet the Speakers

Jan D'Herdt

Register In Person or Virtually

Monday, 7th December, 2026

Monday, 14th December, 2026

Register In-Person

Registration, drinks, and canapes

Should You Secure Your Vendors?

Networking & Entertainment

Registration, drinks, and canapes

2026 Retrospective and What to Budget for in 2027

Networking & Entertainment