Just before I sign off for Christmas (and I hope everyone out there has a very Happy Christmas!), I just wanted to let you know about some of the security events coming up in the new year. Quite a few of our Irish developer audience also have IT responsibilities, so I thought you might find this information useful.

As part of the ongoing security awareness initiative, there are 7 free 1-day training sessions (in Dublin, Belfast and Cork) being held between February and June 2005. If you can't make the day-long sessions (or if you live anywhere other than Dublin, Belfast or Cork :), there are also a set of 90-min webcasts you can attend.

If you are interested, the full line-up is available here.

I've pulled out the first few to give you an idea of the content:

• Event Type: Full day seminar
• Location: Dublin, Microsoft buildings (EPDC 2)
• Overview: A secure and trustworthy electronic environment for conducting business is the number one requirement on almost every IT or operations manager’s lips. Unfortunately, the number of threats and attacks targeting e-business organisations is on the increase. This full day seminar aims to equip IT Professionals who are in charge of designing, deploying and administering such systems with more structured proactive defences.
• Click here to register.

• Event Type: 90 min webcast
• OverviewThis session describes how ISA Server 2004 can provide a complete security solution to help protect the network perimeter from the Internet, remote users, and remote network segments. The session demonstrates how ISA Server 2004 can enhance security for internal servers and external-facing resources such as Exchange Server or Internet Information Services, and also how ISA Server can operate as a virtual private networking server for more secure remote access to the internal network.
• Click here to register.

• Event Type: 90 min webcast
• Overview: This session helps customers plan and implement processes to help identify where they are vulnerable to network attacks and provides guidance on how to remediate issues identified in the assessment process. The session covers planning and performing security assessments, implementing penetration testing for intrusive network attacks, and presents checklists that will help identify and remediate common issues. Also described are the use of tools and processes for scanning systems for vulnerabilities.
• Click here to register.