1108, 2013

DeepINTEL 2013 – New Talk: “Hackers NG” – Dealing with the Security Skills Shortage

René Pfeiffer/ August 11, 2013/ Conference, Security Intelligence

Cooling temperatures in Vienna bring new talks to DeepINTEL. We are proud to announce a talk by Colin McLean, lecturer in Computing at the University of Abertay Dundee in Scotland. He discussed the problem of finding hackers with security skills (and who probably do not possess the attributes Mr Hayden sees in his own IT staff). The abstract reads as follows: There is a cyber security skills shortage and it’s becoming a world-wide concern with many stakeholders warning of impending doom. Browsing the Internet shows that this concern is not only expressed from the USA, and the UK, but all over the world. Mark Weatherford of the US Department of Homeland Security has stated “The lack of people with cyber security skills requires urgent attention. The DoHS can’t find enough people to hire.”. The

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0508, 2013

DeepINTEL 2013 – New Talk „Mutually Assured Pwnage“

René Pfeiffer/ August 5, 2013/ Conference, Security Intelligence

We have added a new talk to the DeepINTEL 2013 schedule. Karin Kosina will talk about „Mutually Assured Pwnage“ and critically explore what Cold War analogies can and cannot teach us about war in the 5th domain. “Cyberwar” has become a thing (never mind that no-one seems to really know what that thing really is). Along with the militarisation of cyberspace – or “the fifth domain of warfare” – there has been a flurry of attempts to draw analogies to other models of conflict. While this is understandable to a certain extent – What worked in the past may work again in the future, right? And let’s not be so cynical here to speak about hammers and things that look like nails… –, it has in many cases only added to the confusion around an already confused

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1607, 2013

DeepINTEL 2013 – Preliminary Schedule

René Pfeiffer/ July 16, 2013/ Conference, Schedule, Security Intelligence

The preliminary schedule of the DeepINTEL conference is ready! We have selected the presentations carefully and tried to address in-depth threats to (y)our infrastructure and (y)our data. Here are the abstracts of the talks (in alphabetical order, according to the speakers name), that we are allowed to publish publicly: Compliance and Transparency of Cloud Features against Security Standards (Yury Chemerkin) Nowadays cloud vendors provide a solid integration, virtualization and optimization in many fields (for example medical, business, and education) for online services. Such services operate with sensitive data which attracts attackers. There are quite different security controls and metrics for every Cloud service provider. It is generally known that several industrial organizations are focused on keeping an appropriate security level by offering solutions to improve the transparency of Cloud security controls among different vendors.

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2206, 2013

CfP for DeepSec 2013 is still open! Send us (your?) security nightmares!

René Pfeiffer/ June 22, 2013/ Administrivia, Conference

Hello to all you late birds! The Call for Papers for DeepSec 2013 is still open! We are eagerly waiting for your workshops and talks! Don’t tell us that the world has become a safe place and there’s nothing out there that can’t be broken or is broken by design – We won’t believe you. In case you have forgotten, the motto for DeepSec 2013 is „Secrets, Failures, and Visions!“. We came up with this idea in December 2012, long before the headlines of this month. Everyone has secrets to protect. Failures are more common than you might think. Visions is what we need in the future to tackle the problems of today. All of these concepts touch the topics usually discussed at (IT) security conferences. It doesn’t matter if you have to deal

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1204, 2013

BSidesLondon and the Rookie Track

René Pfeiffer/ April 12, 2013/ Conference, Discussion

DeepSec is actively supporting the BSidesLondon conference this month. We are joining the panel of mentors of the rookie track, and we’re looking forward to see a lot of interesting talks. In March we talked about our motivation to support the rookie track idea with Finux on the Rookie Track Podcast. DeepSec has been supporting young security researchers for years. Some of them were given an opportunity to speak at past DeepSec conferences in order to present their work. We think that this is a good idea, and here is why: Speaking publicly in front of an audience can be hard. It is even harder if you have never done this before. It gets a lot harder if you talk about IT security, because there’s a chance you found something that probably broke, is

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2102, 2013

DeepSec 2013 – CfP: Covering Secrets, Failures & Visions!

René Pfeiffer/ February 21, 2013/ Conference, Security

DeepSec 2013 – Secrets, Failures & Visions – Call for Papers We are preparing the call for papers for DeepSec 2013, and we are trying to shift your mindset. We could easily come up with a list of trending technologies, gadgets and behaviours that will have an impact on information security. Instead we are looking for presentations and workshops dealing with secrets, failures and visions. This gives us another perspective and hopefully more to think about. Secrets Every person, every group, every enterprise and every government has them. Secrets are the very reason why information security uses encryption, access control, even doors and locks (physical and otherwise). You wouldn’t need all of this if it weren’t for safeguarding the secrets. Failures Sometimes things go wrong. Often not only by malicious action, but also by

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2512, 2012

Call for Papers Security BSides London 2013

René Pfeiffer/ December 25, 2012/ Conference

This is a gentle reminder that the Call for Papers for Security BSides London still runs until January 5th 2013. If you got some extra time during the boring Christmas days or right after New Year’s Eve, then you should submit. Show us how you break or fix something! And if you have never presented before, you should definitely take a look at the Rookie Track. BSides London actively supports speakers with little or no experience on stage. Submit a talk, get a mentor, prepare and tell us what you have found! See you in London!

2012, 2012

DeepSec 2012 Articles and Slides

René Pfeiffer/ December 20, 2012/ Conference, Press

We have collected links to articles covering DeepSec 2012. If we missed one, please let us know. Arron Finnon’s Report on the DeepSEC Conference “Breaking SAP Portal” by Alexander Polyakov DeepSec 2012: Insecurity? It’s just a matter of time (in German) DeepSec 2012: IT-Sicherheitskonferenz in Wien (in German) DeepSec 2012: Services of cyber crime and cyber weapons in the Cloud (in German) DeepSec 2012: Wargames in the Fifth Domain (in German) DeepSec 2012: When I Grow up I want to be a Cyberterrorist (in German) “Malware Analysis on a shoestring budget” commented by Michael Boman The Evolution of e-Money (by Jon Matonis) SAP Slapping (by Dave Hartley) Sicherheitschecks von iPhone-Apps für fast jeden möglich (in German) Übernahme des Hypervisors über ein Gastsystem (in German) The slides of DeepSec 2012 can be found for download

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1112, 2012

Apology – “Bad Things in Good Packages”

René Pfeiffer/ December 11, 2012/ Administrivia, Conference

We’re almost back to daily routine after having a wonderful DeepSec 2012. Given the feedback from speakers and attendees they loved the atmosphere at the conference and at the hotel. We are happy to hear about this and keep an open ear for further comments on your DeepSec experience. However, things can go wrong and they often will. There’s no way around this as every organisation team will confirm. Most of the problems were dealt with by our own damage control teams at the conference. There’s one issue that we wish to discuss openly. We received complaints via Twitter about the slides of the talk „Bad Things in Good Packages – Creative Exploit Delivery“ published by the speaker on Slideshare on 30 November 2012. The complaint was about the offensive portrayal of women. The

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1112, 2012

DeepSec supports Security B-Sides London 2013

René Pfeiffer/ December 11, 2012/ Conference

We are happy to announce that we will support the Security B-Sides London 2013! Specifically we support the BSides London “Rookie Track”, and we offer a ticket for DeepSec 2013 including two nights at the conference hotel in Vienna. There’s also a special arrangement covering a flight to Vienna and back. We believe in new ideas and new perspectives. That’s why we offer special slots at our conference for young security researchers (the U21 category marked in our CfP form). We will be present during the “Rookie Track” talks during BSides London. DeepSec wishes to encourage any kind of security research by supporting curious and talented researchers. Never having presented results in public should be no reason not to share them with all of us. We believe that the idea of having mentors and

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2511, 2012

DeepSec 2012 Talk: When I Grow up I want to be a Cyberterrorist

René Pfeiffer/ November 25, 2012/ Conference

We have asked Mike Kemp to give an overview of what to expect from his talk When I Grow up I want to be a Cyberterrorist: Terrorism is not big. It is not clever. It is definitely not funny (unless it involves pies in the face). It can however (like so much in life), be utterly absurd. To clarify, the reactions to it can be. The UK is the most surveiled place on earth (outside of Disneyland). The United Kingdom has lots of cameras, lots of privately collected and held data, lots of asinine legislation, and lots of panic. The media and political classes have conspired to protect the once freedom loving residents of the UK against themselves (and we are not alone in living the Panopticon dream). Frankly, it’s pissing me off. In

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1511, 2012

Using untrusted Network Environments

René Pfeiffer/ November 15, 2012/ Administrivia, Conference, Security

We mentioned on Twitter that DeepSec 2012 will again feature an open wireless network. This means that there will be no barriers when connecting to the Internet – no passwords, no login, no authentication and no encryption. Some of us are used to operate in untrusted environments, most others aren’t. So the tricky part is giving proper advice for all those who are not familiar with protecting their computing devices and network connections. We don’t know what your skills are, but we try to give some (hopefully) sensible hints. If you are well-versed with IT security and its tools, then you probably already know what you are doing. Nevertheless it’s a good habit to double-check. We caught one of our own sessions chairs with his crypto pants down and found a password – just

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1411, 2012

DeepSec 2012 Talk: A Non-Attribution-Dilemma and its Impact on legal Regulation of Cyberwar

René Pfeiffer/ November 14, 2012/ Conference, Discussion

We asked Michael Niekamp and Florian Grunert to give an outlook on their presentation titled A Non-Attribution-Dilemma and its Impact on Legal Regulation of Cyberwar: A general challenge of cyberwar lies in the field of legal regulation under conditions of non-attribution. The optimistic view emphasizes that our international law and its underlying standards are sufficient (in principle and de facto) to solve all emerging problems. A more sceptical view postulates “the impossibility of global regulation”. Although we lean towards the sceptical view, we’ll provide a different and new line of reasoning for the impossibility of a rational legal regulation by formulating a non-attribution-dilemma. In contrast to some prominent arguments, we do not overestimate the suggestive power of the non-attribution-problem concerning the question of rational “deterrence through a threat of retaliation” (DTR for short), but

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0811, 2012

Conference seats are running low…

Mika/ November 8, 2012/ Conference

Honestly: We have such a big interest this year, which is beyond any expectations that we might need to close our ticket sales one or two weeks before the conference. If the trend continues like past years we will exceed the capacity for the conference rooms and the restaurant.We are negotiating with the hotel and do our best to accommodate everyone who wants to attend. Booking is still open at: https://deepsec.net/register.html We have already exceeded the room contingency at our hotel, The Imperial Riding School (Renaissance Vienna Hotel), which grants an attractive room rate, incl breakfast etc… The rate is EUR115,- per night (single person) inc. all fees and taxes, inc. American breakfast and a cancellation possible until 6 PM on the arrival date. Cheaper offers on travel-booking sites typically don’t include breakfast or

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0811, 2012

DeepSec 2012 Talk: Pentesting iOS Apps – Runtime Analysis and Manipulation

René Pfeiffer/ November 8, 2012/ Conference, Security

Since one of the focus topics of DeepSec 2012 deals with mobile computing and devices, we asked Andreas Kurtz to elaborate on his presentation about pentesting iOS apps: „Apple’s iPhone and iPad are quite trendy consumer devices, and have become increasingly popular even in enterprises nowadays. Apps, downloaded from the AppStore or developed in-house, are supposed to completely change and optimize the way of work. Suddenly, managers have access to business intelligence information, data warehouses and financial charts on their mobile devices: Apps are used as front ends to executive information systems and, thus, are carrying around loads of sensitive data. At a first glance it seems, that there’s nothing new on it. Indeed, it is quite common to remotely access critical business data. However, the popularity of mobile devices, combined with the sensitive

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