With storm troopers and Darth Vader roaming the room, AusCERT delegates could be forgiven for thinking they had wandered on to a movie set.
The awards, which began under starry skies at the Royal Pines Resort on the Gold Coast, are designed to recognise Australian professionals who work at the frontline of information security.
Delegates were entertained by members of the 501st Legion, an international group which dresses up as storm troopers and Sith lords, Laserman and comedy band, The Axis of Awesome.
The AusCERT award winners were:
Individual Excellence in Information Security: Shaun Vlassis
Vlassis was recognised for his voluntary contribution to the Shadow Server Foundation.
Organisational Excellence in Information Security: Telstra CERT
Telstra CERT was selected for its commitment to incident response in Australia.
Best Security Initiative: SCADA Community of Interest
SCADA Community of Interest was selected for its initiatives which have contributed to the improvement of SCADA security in the Australian industry, government and academic community.
This was followed by the SC Magazine award winners.
Gatekeeper Award: RSA Netwitness
Protector Award: Sourcefire for IPS
Innovation Award: Varonis
Best SME Security Solution: The finalists were Fortinet, SonicWall and Rapid7
Mobile Security Solution: Janusgate
Product or Service of the Year: Varonis for Metadata Framework
Vendor of the Year: Sophos
Hamish Barwick travelled to AusCERT 2012 as a guest of AusCERT
Follow Hamish Barwick on Twitter: @HamishBarwick
Follow Computerworld Australia on Twitter: @ComputerworldAU