DeepSec 2015 Talk: Cryptography Tools, Identity Vectors for „Djihadists“ – Julie Gommes

René Pfeiffer/ September 30, 2015/ Conference, Security, Security Intelligence

Some speak of Crypto Wars 2.0. For others the Crypto Wars have never ended. FBI Directory James Comey does not get tired of demanding back doors to IT infrastructure and devices (there is no difference between back door and front door, mind you). Let’s take a step back and look at the threats. We did this in 2011 with a talk by Duncan Campbell titled How Terrorists Encrypt. The audience at DeepSec 2011 was informed that encryption does not play a major role in major terror plots. What about today? Have terrorists adopted new means of communication? Since the authorities demanding access to protected information do not have statistics readily available, we turned to researchers who might answer this question. Julie Gommes will present the results of studies analysing the communication culture of criminal

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DeepSec 2015 Workshop: PowerShell for Penetration Testers – Nikhil Mittal

Sanna/ September 29, 2015/ Conference, Security, Training

The platform you are working with (or against) determines the tools you can use. Of course, everyone loves to boot the operating system of choice and hack on familiar grounds. Occasionally you have no choice, and you have to use what’s available. This is especially true for penetration testing. You get to use what you find on the systems of your digital beachhead. And you are well advised to get familiar with the tools you most definitely will find on these systems. This is a reason to look at the PowerShell. It is available on the Microsoft® Windows platform, so it’s the way to go. In his workshop at DeepSec 2015 Nikhil Mittal will teach you all you need to know about the PowerShell. PowerShell is the ideal tool for penetration testing of a

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DeepSec 2015: The Early Bird Gets the Luxury Bed, Swimming Pool and a Royal Breakfast

Sanna/ September 28, 2015/ Administrivia, Conference, Veranstaltung

DeepSec 2015 is drawing nearer and tickets sell like hot cakes! Just an insider tip for all the smart birds out there: Get a DeepSec ticket for Early Birds and, while you’re at it book a room at our conference hotel straightaway – before they’re sold out! We have arranged a very competitive conference rate for you (including the breakfast, swimming pool & leisure aerea). Free Internet will be provided in the conference area. For comparison, direct booking rates are more expensive, and typically don’t include breakfast or free Wi-Fi. About the Hotel The Imperial Riding School Renaissance Vienna Hotel is located in a historical building, the former military horse riding school, which was built and used by Emperor Franz Josef I in 1850. Today this exquisite neo-classical hotel features 339 Deluxe Rooms, a Club Lounge, a conference centre, bar, library,

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DeepSec Talk 2015: Cryptographic Enforcement of Segregation of Duty within Work-Flows – Thomas Maus

Sanna/ September 20, 2015/ Conference

Encryption is great. Once you have a secret key and an algorithm, you can safeguard your information. The trouble starts when you communicate. You have to share something. And you need to invest trust. This is easy if you  have a common agenda. If things diverge, you need something else. Thomas Maus will explain in his talk cryptographic methods that can help you dealing with this problem. Meet Alice and Bob, who might not be friends at all. Workflows with segregation-of-duty requirements or involving multiple parties with non-aligned interests (typically mutually distrustful) pose interesting challenges in often neglected security dimensions. Cryptographic approaches are presented to technically enforce strict auditability, traceability and multi-party-authorized access control and thus, also enable exoneration from allegations. These ideas are illustrated by challenging examples – constructing various checks and balances for telecommunications data retention, a vividly discussed

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DeepSec 2015 Talk: Legal Responses Against Cyber Incidents – Oscar Serrano

Sanna/ September 19, 2015/ Conference, Security

Like it or not, „cyber“ is here to stay. No matter what word you use, the networks have become a battlefield for various military operations. While you won’t be able to secure physical territory by keyboard (you still need boots on the ground for this), you can gain information, thwart hostile communications, and possibly sabotage devices (given the sorry state of the Internet of Stuff). When you deal  with actions in this arena, you might want to know what your options are. It’s worth to think about legal consequences. When it comes to mundane cyber crime, you usually have laws to deal with incidents. What is the response to a military cyber attack? And what counts as one? In his presentation at DeepSec 2015 Oscar Serrano will introduce you to the legal implications and

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DeepSec 2015 Talk: Revisiting SOHO Router Attacks – Jose Antonio Rodriguez Garcia and Ivan Sanz de Castro

Sanna/ September 18, 2015/ Conference, Internet, Security

Have you seen Jon Schiefer’s  film Algorithm? If you haven’t, then you should catch up. The protagonist of the story gain access by using the good old small office / home office (SOHO) infrastructure. The attack is pretty realistic, and it shows that SOHO networks can expose all devices connected to it, either briefly or permanently. Combined with the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) hype, SOHO networks are guaranteed to contain devices used for business purposes. We haven’t even talked about the security of entertainment equipment or the Internet of Stuff (IoT). Like it or not, SOHO areas are part of your perimeter once you allow people to work from home or to bring work home. Be brave and enter the wonderful world of consumer devices used to protect enterprise networks. José Antonio Rodríguez

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DeepSec 2015 Talk: Building a Better Honeypot Network – Josh Pyorre (OpenDNS)

Sanna/ September 17, 2015/ Conference, Internet, Security

Most defenders only learn what attackers can do after recovering from a successful attack. Evaluating forensic evidence can tell you a lot. While this is still useful, wouldn’t it be better to learn from your adversaries without risking your production systems or sensitive data? There is a way. Use some bait and watch. Honeypots to the rescue! Josh Pyorre will tell you in his presentation how this works. Honeypots and honeypot networks can assist security researchers in understanding different attacker techniques across a variety of systems. This information can be used to better protect our systems and networks, but it takes a lot of work to sift through the data. Installing a network of honeypots to provide useful information should be an easy task, but there just isn’t much to tie everything together in

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DeepSec 2015 Talk: illusoryTLS – Nobody But Us. Impersonate,Tamper and Exploit (secYOUre)

Sanna/ September 11, 2015/ Conference, Internet, Security

Transport Layer Security is a cornerstone of modern infrastructure. The „Cloud“ is full of it (at least it should be). For most people it is the magic bullet to solve security problems. Well, it is helpful, but only until you try to dive into the implementation on servers, clients, certificate vendors, or Certificate Authorities. Alfonso De Gregorio has done this. He will present his findings at DeepSec 2015 in his presentation aptly titled „illusoryTLS: Nobody But Us. Impersonate,Tamper and Exploit“. Learn how to embed an elliptic-curve asymmetric backdoor into a RSA modulus using Elligator. Find out how the entire TLS security may turn to be fictional, if a single CA certificate with a secretly embedded backdoor enters the certificate store of relying parties. Discover how some entities might have practically explored cryptographic backdoors for intelligence purposes regardless of

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DeepSec 2015 Talk: Deactivating Endpoint Protection Software in an Unauthorized Manner

René Pfeiffer/ September 7, 2015/ Conference, Security

Your infrastructure is full of endpoints. Did you know that? You even have endpoints if you use your employees’ devices (BYOD!) or the „Cloud“ (YMMV!). Can’t escape them. Since the bad girls and guys knows this, they will attack these weak points first. How are your endpoints (a.k.a. clients in the old days) protected? In case you use software to protect these vulnerable systems, then you should attend Matthias Deeg’s talk. He will show you the art of Deactivating Endpoint Protection Software in an Unauthorized Manner: Endpoint protection software such as anti-virus or firewall software often have a password protection in order to restrict access to a management console for changing settings or deactivating protection features to authorized users only. Sometimes the protection can only be deactivated temporarily for a few minutes, sometimes it

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DeepSec 2015 Schedule is almost stable & BSidesVienna CfP Deadline

René Pfeiffer/ September 7, 2015/ Administrivia, Conference

The schedule of DeepSec 2015 is almost done. We’re still reviewing submissions and talk to authors. We are confident to call the schedule stable soon. Until this happens, we will describe the presentations and trainings with a little more detail here. Take a good look, but don’t wait too long before booking a ticket. The workshops can only accommodate a limited amount of attendees. Don’t miss the opportunity! We also like to point out that the Call for Papers for the BSidesVienna event is ending on 15th September 2015! If you have interesting content, please submit!

The Enemy Within: Industrial Espionage and Your Network at DeepSec 2015

Sanna/ September 3, 2015/ Conference, High Entropy, Security

Networking is vital to aquire jobs in the business world, manage projects, and develop products. It all started with the World Wide Web, now we also interact via various clouds and social media platforms with our staff, clients, and customers. Data gets outsourced to third parties, and business letters are airily send by Instant Messenger (due to the lack of messenger ravens, sadly). But the thoughtless embrace of networks invites threats, previously known only from the silver screen – spies. And, unfortunately, in today’s digital environment, it is no longer enough to just close the door to protect yourself from prying eyes. There is much more to be considered. We’re here to help. DeepSec does not want to leave your company out in the cold: Attend our next conference which takes place in Vienna on

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Last Reminder – the DeepSec 2015 Call for Papers closes today!

René Pfeiffer/ July 30, 2015/ Call for Papers, Conference

Take advantage of our Call for Papers! We can’t believe that all the devices, networks, services, and shiny things around us are completely secure. Once it got Wi-Fi, a SIM card, memory, or a processor there is bound to be an accident. It’s not just hunting rifles, jeeps, currencies, experts, and airplanes that can be hacked. There is more. Tell us! Don’t let the IT crowd of today repeat the mistakes of our ancestors. Submit a two-day training and help to save some souls! We are especially interested in secure application development, intrusion detection/prevention, penetration testing, crypto & secure communication, mobiles devices, the Internet of Things, security intelligence, wireless hacking (Wi-Fi, mobile networks, …), forensics, and your workshop that really knocks the socks off our attendees! Drop your training submission into our CfP manager!

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DeepSec Ticket Registration: Early Worm gets to 0wn the Network

René Pfeiffer/ June 16, 2015/ Administrivia, Conference

Did you feed the cat? Did you lock the door? Did you switch off the Internet while on vacation? Did you wrap your wallet in tin foil? Did you buy this ticket to this conference you want to attend in November? How was it called? We have a foolproof way to get over this constant feeling that you forgot something. Go to our registration web site, book a ticket to DeepSec 2015, print it out, and write all the important things you have to remember on the back! Your laundry list of All Teh Important Things™ will last until November 2015. After that you will come up with a new way to help you. Looking forward to see you!

Prepare yourself for BSidesLondon!

René Pfeiffer/ May 27, 2015/ Conference

The BSidesLondon event is taking place next week. In case you have missed the tweets and don’t surf the web, check out the schedule. The keynote will shed some light on the gap between information security and technology already being used “out there” in the real world. It’s nice to spend months on solid designs and policies, but this doesn’t help you much when your users go shopping in the meantime. Further presentations will tell you all about DarkComet, how to rob a bank, Android malware analysis, Point-of-Sale (POS) devices turning you into a billionaire, elliptic curve cryptography for the fearless, hash algorithm magic, infosec for the masses, and much more. You are really in for a treat. BSidesLondon will feature a rookie track again! Do the rookies a favour and give them a

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DeepSec 2015 is coming – save the Date!

René Pfeiffer/ January 31, 2015/ Administrivia, Conference, Mission Statement

We are back from our break. We have been busy behind the scenes. The video recordings of DeepSec 2014 have been fully post-processed. The video files are currently on their way to our Vimeo account. The same goes for the many photographs that were taken by our photographer at the conference. We are preparing a selection to publish some impressions from the event. The dates for DeepSec 2015 and DeepINTEL 2015 have been finalised. DeepSec will be on 17 to 20 November 2015. DeepINTEL will be on 11 and 12 May 2015. The Call for Papers for DeepSec will be open soon. You can send your submissions for DeepINTEL by email to us (use either cfp at deepsec dot net or deepsec at deepsec dot net, the latter has a public key for encrypted

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