Conference Recap: Security BSides Dublin

Sherpa Intelligence: Your Guide Up a Mountain of Information!

It’s long been a professional goal of mine to keynote a conference outside of the United States. Although I had the great fortune of doing that in 2018 at the Southern African Online Information Meeting (SAOIM), I still longed to speak internationally at a specifically Information Security event.

InfoSecSherpa in Pretoria, South Africa in 2018.

That wish came true on May 24, 2025 when I presented my talk as the opening keynote speaker for Security BSides Dublin conference on the campus of the renowned Trinity College.

InfoSecSherpa’s BSides Dublin talk title.

The journey to my Dublin talk began in January 2024 when one of the conference organizers, the lovely Anthi Gilligan, reached out to invite me to speak at their May 2024 event. Unfortunately, that date just didn’t work out for me that year and they kindly obliged and held space for me this year. I was thrilled to confirm my presence for their May 2025 event.

I was supposed to give this talk, “Long Overdue: Making InfoSec Better Through Library Science” at the April 2023 RSA Conference in San Francisco, California. Unfortunately, due to a last minute family emergency, I had to withdraw. Eager to still present the content of this talk, I went to work on updating and expanding on my original presentation.

One of the many reasons I was so excited to present this talk in Dublin is because half of my ancestral DNA comes from Ireland, specifically, County Donegal.

If my Irish ancestors could see me now!

I did work my ancestry into my talk and was pleased to learn that there was a conference attendee originally from County Donegal! I enjoyed chatting with him after my talk. I was especially pleased by his compliment that I pronounced “Donegal” correctly, to which I replied, “I was raised right!”

Representing County Donegal with my Dún na nGall shirt in front of Trinity College Business School.

I presented in my newly-purchased Dún na nGall Ireland t-shirt!

My talk focused on three library science concepts: Laws of Library Science, Principles of Library Classification, and the Reference Interview.

Three of the Library Science concepts I related to Information Security in my talk.

I used this slide below as a transition to wind down my talk with some other principles and concepts that are a part of my own personal Library Science experience that I strongly believe should also be engrained into Information Security:

• Empathy

• Ethics

• Leadership

Capping off my talk with some Dublin memories and other principles to consider.

Action shot during my parting thought: Ní thuigeann an sách an seang

[Once the recording of my full keynote is available, I will update this blog post with the link!]

I am grateful to the engaged and attentive audience who kindly laughed at my jokes and provided me with positive and complimentary feedback about my talk. It was very exciting and fulfilling for me to hear from attendees who extracted parts of my talk to apply to their team or workplace!

I spoke with one gentleman who wasn’t even in Information Security but is a researcher in a PhD program on campus who told me that he will be applying some of my tips to his own work. Others asked me for further advice based on what I said. This filled my heart with joy and further proved my point that Library Science absolutely has components to it that can be applied for the improvement of Information Security.

This was such a great experience and again I’d like to thank the hard working volunteers of Security BSides Dublin for not only inviting me, but for assisting me onsite at the event.

I’d like to take a moment to thank two brilliant and kind friends, SecEvangelism and Lea Snyder, who helped me massively at the event when jet lag and dehydration caught up with me in a bad way that day.

It was a thrill and an honor to speak at Trinity College and I will be forever grateful for this opportunity! Sláinte!

[If you’d like me to speak to your group about applying Library Science to Information Security, let me know! tracy@sherpaintel.com]

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My trip to Dublin wasn’t all work and no play! I had a fantastic time in the city.

Please enjoy some photos from my explorations in the city!

1. Lovely afternoon Tea at Bewley’s Grafton Street.

2. Delicious Xi’an Famous Spice Bag from Xi’An Street Food.

3. InfoSecSherpa on a bridge over the River Liffey.

4. Pints of Guinness in a pub with InfoSecSherpa and SecEvangelism.

5. Rainbow over Dublin.

6. St. Patrick’s Cathedral from the top of a double-decker tour bus.

Learn more about InfoSecSherpa or Sherpa Intelligence!