Encryption and ways to break it go hand in hand. When it comes to the digital world, the method of rapidly using different keys may lead to success, provided you have sufficient computing power. The graphics processing units (GPUs) have come a long way from just preparing the bits to be sent to the display […]
Seeing is believing. If you sit in front of your desktop and everything looks as it should look, then you are not in the Matrix, right? Right? Well, maybe. Manipulating the surface to make something to look similar is a technique also used by phishing, spammers, and social engineers. But what if the attacker sitting […]
The Marshmallow version was a significant revision for Android. Among the new features that were introduced one of the most significant is, without any doubt, the runtime permission. The permission model was totally redesigned, categorising the permissions into four main categories. The main concept of this categorisation is how much risk a user is exposed […]
The world’s gone mobile. Mobile devices have surpassed the standard computer (i.e. desktop) installation multiple times. In turn this means that you will encounter these devices most definitely when testing or implementing security measures. Usually adversaries do not use the platform itself. They use software to gain entry. This is why mobiles apps are the […]
The motto of DeepSec 2017 is „Science first!“. This is expressed by the co-located ROOTS workshop, many speakers from academics, topics fresh from the front lines of research, and a mindset that favours facts over fake content or showmanship. This is why we want to thank the University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria for their […]
The arsenal of components you can use for securing your organisation’s digital assets is vast. The market offers a sheer endless supply of application level gateways (formerly know as „firewalls“), network intrusion detection/prevention systems, anti-virus filters for any kind of platform (almost down to the refrigerator in the office), security tokens, biometrics, strong cryptography (just […]
You have probably heard of Google. Well, you will be hearing more from them if you come to DeepSec 2017. They have agreed to support our conference. They will be on site, and you will be able to talk to them. Every year we aim to give you opportunities for a short-cut, for exchanging ideas, […]
The SAP business suite is widespread among enterprises. It is the heart of the operation, at least in terms of business logic, administration, accounting, and many other cornerstones of big companies. SAP itself was founded in 1972. Its software has now grown up and lives with the Internet and cloud platforms next door. Due to […]
There is a famous thought experiment described in the book A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge. It deals with the possibility of unperceived existence; for example does a falling tree in the forest make a sound when no one is around to hear it? Given the many reports and mentions about zero-day exploits, […]
Microsoft has introduced the Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) into Windows 2000 and later versions of the operating system. Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 feature the version 4.0 of the protocol. BITS is designed to use idle bandwidth in order to transfer data to and from servers. BITS is an obedient servant, and […]
“Our new tool XFLTReaT is an open-source tunnelling framework that handles all the boring stuff and gives users the capability to take care of only the things that matter”, says Balazs. “It provides significant improvements over existing tools. From now on there is no need to write a new tunnel for each and every protocol […]
A lot is expected of software developers these days; they are expected to be experts in everything despite very little training. Throw in the IT security team (often with little-to-no knowledge of how to build software) telling developers what to do and how to do it, and the situation is further strained. This silo-filled, tension-laced […]
Everyone has firewalls or filters. They are now called application-level gateway (ALG) and have lots of features included. Algorithms, signatures, heuristics, protocol checks, verification; you name it. It’s all in there. But does it work? Obfuscation and evading technology has been around since the first filter was created. Anticipating what data might look like is […]
You are what you think. At least we think so. Is this mental model the right way to explore our surroundings and our interconnected world? Well, let’s find out by thinking about it. When we’re talking and thinking about security, we very often have a rather fixed mindset and keep using what we think are […]
How would your day look without electrical power? Given the fact that we rely on information technology every single minute of our lives (well, mostly), this would be a very dark outlook indeed. Knocking out the power grid is a tactic used by the military. They have even special tools for disabling power lines and […]