Cybersecurity: It's All About the Network
David Zendzian '96 started BSides Charleston in 2012 as a way for members of the information security community to get together. A bonus is that it also brings alumni and students together.
BSides Charleston offers a collegiate community for people in the information security field to gather and share best practices and discuss forecasts for the future. A nonprofit, BSides Charleston started in 2012 at the instigation of David M. Zendzian ’96.
The two-day annual event has historically been held on the College of Charleston campus, demonstrating that the College is front and center when it comes to information security. Held in the Beatty Center for the School of Business on Nov. 7 and 8, this year’s event not only provided free tickets to CofC students but also featured alumni speakers, including Zendzian and Ross Clarke ’22, and advisory board members, including Philip Kramp ’05, Melinda Patience ’07 and Zack Dayton, former president of the Cybersecurity Club.
“It’s a great networking opportunity, and the guest speakers are really interesting,” says treasurer of the CofC Cybersecurity Club, Jenn Spittle, a computer science major and political science minor who has been coming to BSides for the last three years and encourages club members to attend, as well. “I really enjoy engaging with the Charleston cybersecurity community.”
That community engaged with 30 CofC students the first night of this year’s event, when they took a deep dive into cybersecurity offense and breaking bad code. The next day was a full schedule of speakers and activities, including lock picking and capture the flag.
Josh Baek, a computer science major and data science minor, attended BSides for the first time and found it beneficial.
“I’m more focused on software development, but BSides gave me the opportunity to gain a beginner-level understanding of information security,” says Baek. “I particularly enjoyed learning about XSS cross-site scripting and how to validate inputs to avoid the input of malicious files.”
This year’s event also featured a technology career consultant, who met with 60 of the 150 attendees about their résumés. Among them was computer science major and applied AI minor Adwoa Addai, who learned the value of an executive summary to encourage the résumé reviewer to continue reading. She also discovered the importance of using technical terms associated with classes and including soft skills like patience, collaboration and communication.
The success of the annual BSides event has a lot to do with the efforts of the advisory board – particularly Patience. A business administration and hospitality and tourism management double-major, Patience
“I have been part of BSides since the beginning and stuck around because it’s a great group of people, and I have an interest in data and data visualization,” says Patience, research coordinator for the Office of Tourism Analysis, who can be credited with the conference’s intimate and familiar-feeling experience. “Plus, I enjoy using my event-planning and hospitality background.”
BSides will hold its next event in November 2026, but in the interim, anyone interested in cybersecurity is welcome to attend the InfoSec meetings at the Frothy Beard (1401 Sam Rittenberg Blvd., Suite 1) at 7 p.m. on the last Wednesday of every month (the November and December meetings will be held on the second-to-last Wednesdays of the month, due to the holidays).
