SANS Riyadh February 2026 Community Night

Join us on Monday, 2nd February 2026 for a Community Night with our top-notch instructor James Tarala.

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Community Night

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.

Location: Hyatt Regency Riyadh Olaya, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, is a city where modernity meets tradition. Its rich culture and heritage are showcased at iconic sites like Diriyah, the birthplace of the kingdom, and the historic Masmak Fortress. Savor traditional Saudi dishes such as kabsa, mandi, and sweet dates. Visitors can explore the architectural marvels of the Kingdom Centre, the grandeur of Al Murabba Palace, and the stunning natural beauty of the Edge of the World, making Riyadh a destination of cultural and scenic wonder.

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Registration, drinks, and canapes

Monday, February 2, 202605:00PM - 05:30PM AST

The Acceleration Effect: What AI Means for Cyber Defense Teams

Artificial intelligence is accelerating every part of the cybersecurity landscape. Offensive teams—both criminal and state-sponsored—are now using AI to automate reconnaissance, develop exploits, and scale social engineering faster than human defenders can respond. The rise of agentic AI systems—autonomous AI agents capable of planning, adapting, and executing complex tasks — has further amplified this shift. These systems can chain together actions without direct human input, creating new forms of persistence and unpredictability in the threat environment.

For defenders, this “acceleration effect” doesn’t change the fundamentals of good cybersecurity, but it redefines the tempo. Core defenses—identity controls, configuration management, vulnerability remediation, and monitoring—remain essential, yet they must now operate with greater speed, consistency, and automation. Manual exception management, once a tolerated inefficiency, becomes an exploitable weakness when adversaries move at machine speed.

This session explores how cyber defense teams can modernize their operations to keep pace with AI-driven threats. Attendees will gain practical insights into integrating automation responsibly, preparing for the emergence of agentic AI in both offense and defense, and maintaining resilience in an environment where decisions increasingly happen faster than humans canw think.

Monday, February 2, 202605:30PM - 06:30PM AST

Presented by

James Tarala

Senior Instructor

Meet the Speaker

James Tarala

Managing Partner

James is a managing partner at Cyverity, specializing in cybersecurity risk and governance. A SANS instructor for 20+ years, he holds 14 GIAC certs including the GSE, and has helped author the CIS Controls, CRF resources, and courses like LDR419 and LDR519.

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SEC595: Applied Data Science and AI/Machine Learning for Cybersecurity Professionals

SANS Riyadh February 2026 Community Night

Community Night

Schedule

Registration, drinks, and canapes

The Acceleration Effect: What AI Means for Cyber Defense Teams

Meet the Speaker

James Tarala

Register Here

Registration, drinks, and canapes

The Acceleration Effect: What AI Means for Cyber Defense Teams