SAINTCON is an annual technology security conference presented by the Utah chapter of the Security Advisory and Incident Network Team (“UtahSAINT”). This conference has been held for 20 years throughout the State of Utah. Prior to 2013 the conference was called the “UtahSAINT Conference”, but was renamed to be more recognizable and could flourish on it’s own.

SAINTCON is focused on providing great technology security instruction and training. Topics and activities at SAINTCON provide all levels of security training from fundamentals to advanced techniques.

Most people come to listen to the Presentations and Trainings, but year by year we continue to bring more and more elements into the conference. While the presentations are great, we provide a rich experience that allows attendees to focus on things that interest them the most.

Games and Contests are a major part of SAINTCON. Many people spend their entire time at the conference (and in their hotels) playing the Hackers Challenge game. Hackers Challenge was originally used to provide “Something else to do” during less interesting presentations, but has become a serious and high skills driven game that the attendees love to play.

No! SAINTCON has of course grown from a strong interaction from Public Education but is not limited to this mission. We continue to expand the conference to include private corporations and non-education entities. We feel that this strengthens our conference and the UtahSAINT Organization. SAINTCON is open to anyone and everyone who would like to attend.

We will always continue however to have an education focus in key areas, however Network Security does not differ significantly in application.

Maybe… SAINTCON is not just for security and IT professionals, but is for anyone who has an interest in computer security. If computer security, hacking, security research, or other similar things interest you, you will likely enjoy SAINTCON.

We understand that being an IT or security professional often means being tethered to the office via phone and Internet. So we generally provide a robust and highly capable wireless network running at the Conference. You should consider it semi-hostile. Make sure you use appropriate VPN or other secure methods of communication because it is a security conference after all, and we’re sure people are listening. It should be more than adequate for you to keep things running back at the office.

No, In fact we encourage you to bring younger attendees to SAINTCON. We have expanded this option in recent years, and have found that much of what we do and discuss is beneficial to High School students and younger. Student Groups are also welcome and if you contact us prior to registration, we can sometimes work out discounts on registration costs for groups of students.

All attendees younger than 18 years old, MUST be accompanied by an adult.

SAINTCON has always been limited by the number of seats we have available. The conference has SOLD OUT every year we have had it since 2009. We continue to find larger and larger venues, provide more seats and we somehow seem to fill them. In 2019 we had nearly 1500 attendees, this year we plan to fill it again! We still anticipate selling out the con.

Involvement in SAINTCON is an organic thing. Many of the people involved in the conference just seem to show up and start helping. Soon after, they realize what they have gotten themselves into, but by then it’s too late. These days however, we strive for a little more organization than we have in the past. To get involved all you need to do is be willing to help, and reach out to one of the members of the Conference Committee.

You can submit a response to our Call for Papers. All entries are evaluated by the conference committee and those chosen are notified soon after the CFP closes.  CFP for SAINTCON is generally done in two phases:

• Phase 1 – Open Call for anyone to submit.
• Phase 2 – Finding presenters for content gaps.

UtahSAINT and SAINTCON are very concerned about the health and well-being of our community.  Although we are having an in-person conference this year, we will be requiring our attendees to follow guidelines in place by the time of our conference:

• Center for Disease Control
• Utah County Health Department

We expect these to not change much from the time of registration launch, but will monitor this situation closely and communicate any changes to policy as the event becomes closer.