0210, 2017

DeepSec 2017 Talk: Hacking The Brain For Fun And Profit – Stefan Hager

Sanna/ October 2, 2017/ Conference, Discussion

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 proven methods. We tend not to question our decisions and thoughts, and the way how our brains work reaffirms our bias and our mediocre choices. In this talk we take a closer look at how we are thinking, and how we can change or expand this as well as our perception, by hacking into our own brains in order to get a clearer picture of what we really want and need. New ways of thinking and creativity can be

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2909, 2017

DeepSec 2017 Talk: Essential Infrastructure Interdependencies: Would We Be Prepared For Significant Interruptions? – Herbert Saurugg

Sanna/ September 29, 2017/ Conference

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 transformer stations. Progress has enabled network access for power plants and other parts of the grid. It’s not all about hacking stuff. There is a lot more involved when it comes to critical infrastructure, and this is why we have asked Herbert Saurugg, a renowned specialist on this topic, to conduct a presentation at DeepSec 2017. Cyber Security and Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) are major topics almost everywhere. Its priority has also increased during recent years because of rising

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2809, 2017

DeepSec 2017 Talk: Uncovering And Visualizing Botnet Infrastructure And Behavior – Andrea Scarfo & Josh Pyorre

Sanna/ September 28, 2017/ Conference, Internet

When you read about information security, then you might get the impression that there are lots of nameless threats Out There™. Especially when it comes to networked malicious software, i.e. malware, that forms robot armies, the picture gets a lot more vague and foggy. So you need to get some details to sharpen your view. There are some means how to do this, and you will be told at DeepSec 2017 by Andrea Scarfo and Josh Pyorre. How much information about a botnet can one find using a single IP address, domain name or indicator of compromise (IOC)? What kind of behavior can be determined when looking at attacker and victim infrastructure? In an attempt to discover and analyze the infrastructure behind large-scale malware activity, Andrea and Josh began their research with known indicators

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2709, 2017

DeepSec 2017 Talk: Next-Gen Mirai Botnet – Balthasar Martin & Fabian Bräunlein

Sanna/ September 27, 2017/ Conference, Internet, Security

While you were living in a cave, devices took over the world and got connected to the network. This is the state of affairs we live in right now. As long as nothing happens we don’t notice anything about it. The Mirai (未来) botnet changed this all of a sudden. Consumer devices were drafted into an army of bots. Thanks to the proliferation of networked devices such as cameras, home routers, and others the botnet was very successful. The code was designed to run on embedded devices and is even online for inspection. Let’s take a look at how to improve Mirai. Badly secured embedded devices enabled the largest DDoS attack on critical networks seen to date: The Mirai attacks in 2016 were largely pegged on Internet-exposed telnet with default credentials. While such telnet

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2609, 2017

DeepSec 2017 Schedule Update, Review Status, Disputes, and Trainings

René Pfeiffer/ September 26, 2017/ Administrivia, Conference, High Entropy

The DeepSec 2017 schedule is still preliminary. We are almost done, and we have a small update. Some of you have noticed that the schedule featured a training about mobile security. The outline as shown as in the schedule was identical to a different course from a different trainer. We received a complaint, we got the course materials to compare, and it turned out that only the outline of the workshop as shown online was identical, and the original table of contents was not part of the submission we received during the call for papers. The dispute has been settled. The trainer has apologised to the creator of the original table of contents. Nevertheless the trainer has asked to withdraw his submission. This means we will try to replace the slot in the schedule

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2209, 2017

DeepSec 2017 Early Bird Tariff ends on 25 September

René Pfeiffer/ September 22, 2017/ Administrivia, Conference

The early bird tariff for DeepSec 2017 (and ROOTS) ends on 25 September 2017. We recommend buying your ticket now. Save some money! In addition we ask you to book the workshop you want to visit as early as possible! Every year we see sad faces, because the workshop of your choice had to be cancelled. Our trainers need a minimum number of attendees. Some trainers need to catch flights and spend good parts of a whole day travelling. They can’t come to Vienna if the minimum number of trainees is not met. So do yourself a favour, make up your mind now, and book the training you want to have. In case you cannot use online payment, let us know. We can invoice the ticket to you directly, if needed. Just drop us

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2009, 2017

Workshops, Trainings, Talks: DeepSec and ROOTS Schedule Update

René Pfeiffer/ September 20, 2017/ Administrivia, Conference

As you might have noticed, the DeepSec schedule is not complete yet. Furthermore the ROOTS schedule is not published at all. The reason for this are the still pending reviews. The major part concerns ROOTS. ROOTS is an academic workshop where academic publications are presented. There has been some confusion about the term workshop. In the context of ROOTS this means presentations. This is why we have replaced the word workshops on the DeepSec web site and in (hopefully) all texts with the word training. Trainings are the two-day, well, trainings in advance of the DeepSec conference days. ROOTS features presentations, also called workshops in ROOTS-context, as does the DeepSec conference (on the conference days). So we have trainings (the two-day training courses; one, the ARM exploit laboratory is for three days, be careful)

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2009, 2017

44CON revisited: Secure Design in Software is still a new Concept

René Pfeiffer/ September 20, 2017/ High Entropy, Interview, Security

We have been to 44CON, and we returned with lots of ideas and scary news about the state of security in devices and applications. Given the ever spreading Internet of Things (IoT) you can see why connecting random devices via a network with no second thoughts about design, updates, or quality control is a bad idea. Don Bailey illustrated this perfectly in the keynote titled The Internet of Us. His presentation touched all of information security, but IoT featured a prominent role. We are really surrounded by the Internet of SIM cards (sadly which we cannot call IoS). This opens up a new perspective and demystifies the IoT hype. You should watch Matt Wixey’s talk Hacking invisibly and silently with light and sound as soon as the videos are published. Matt discussed hardware hacking

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3108, 2017

DeepINTEL Conference approaches the next generation of IT Security

Sanna/ August 31, 2017/ Conference, Discussion, Security Intelligence

Strategic Information Security: Predicting the Present DeepINTEL Conference presents Approaches to the Next Generation of Security Many products and approaches of information security are trying hard to predict the future. There is always a lot of talk about threats of the future, detection of attacks before they arise or the magic word “pro-active”.  But the prediction of the future does not benefit your business if the present is still unknown. When it comes to information security this means: Do you now know enough about your current situation to make the right decisions within the next few hours? The DeepINTEL seminar conference, which takes place on 21st/22nd of September in Vienna, focuses on this strategic question. Analogies distort Perception and Facts Analogies are often used to illustrate connections. Especially in the areas of IT security,

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2908, 2017

DeepSec 2017 Training: The ARM IoT Exploit Laboratory

René Pfeiffer/ August 29, 2017/ Conference, Security, Training

If the Internet of Things (IoT) will ever leave puberty, it has to deal with the real world. This means dealing with lies, fraud, abuse, exploits, overload, bad tempered clients (and servers), and much more. Analysing applications is best done by looking at what’s behind the scenes. IoT devices, their infrastructure, billions of mobile devices, and servers are powered by processors using the Advanced RISC Machine (ARM) architecture. This design is different from the (still?) widespread Intel® x86 or the AMD™ AMD64 architecture. For security researchers dealing with exploits the change of design means that the assembly language and the behaviour of the processor is different. Developing ways to inject and modify code requires knowledge. Now for everyone who has dealt with opcodes, registers and oddities of CPUs, this is nothing new. Grab the

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2608, 2017

DeepSec 2017 Talk: Malware Analysis: A Machine Learning Approach – Chiheb Chebbi

Sanna/ August 26, 2017/ Conference, Security

Software has a character. It can be beneficial. It can also be malicious. A networked business world and the Internet of connected individuals make life for malicious software, also known as malware, easier. Just like international travel facilitates the spread of diseases and parasites, the networked globe is a big advantage for malware. Researcher can hardly keep up with the numbers of detected viruses, worms, and trojan horses. So why not let machines look for malware on their own? Certainly automation already benefits the hunt for malicious code. Chiheb Chebbi has some ideas that can help. Threats are a growing problem for people and organizations across the globe. With millions of malicious programs in the wild it has become hard to detect zero-day attacks and polymorphic viruses.This is why the need for machine learning-based

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2408, 2017

DeepSec 2017 Keynote: Social Science First! – Dr. Jessica Barker

Sanna/ August 24, 2017/ Conference, High Entropy, Security

While the schedule is still preliminary, we have already some confirmations from our speakers. We are happy to announce Dr Jessica Barker as the keynote speaker for DeepSec 2017. Information security has a lot to do with interactions. Despite AI (a.k.a. Assisted Intelligence), „smart“ assistants (a.k.a. paper clips on steroids), and a metric ton of gadgets we still have a lot of contact with human beings. Marketing departments and tech people lost in code often forget this. Jessica will give you something to think about which you can’t discuss with Siri, Alexa, the Google AI, or even HAL 9000. Bruce Schneier popularised the concept in 1999: cyber security is about people, process and technology. Yet almost two decades later, the industry still focuses so much more on technology than the other two dimensions of

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2208, 2017

Administrivia: How to access ROOTS and DeepSec 2017

René Pfeiffer/ August 22, 2017/ Administrivia, Conference

We have received some question on how to attend the presentations of the 1st Reversing and Offensive-oriented Trends Symposium (ROOTS) 2017. It’s very easy. ROOTS is co-hosted with DeepSec 2017. This means if you attend DeepSec, you also attend ROOTS. In turn attending ROOTS gives you also access to the DeepSec conference. So you only need one ticket to access both events. Bear in mind that our sponsors can give you discount codes for buying tickets. In addition we have a special programme for academics to give you the academic discount for the tickets. Don’t forget: Buying early means saving money! The early bird tariff is still valid until 25 September 2017. After that the ticket price increases. Do us and yourself a favour and book as early as possible. Thank you! See you

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1808, 2017

Mythbusting: Anti-Virus Research considered dangerous

Sanna/ August 18, 2017/ High Entropy, Internet, Security Intelligence, Stories

Everyone doing research in information security or doing any work in this field takes some risks. Since most of the „cyber stuff“ is black magic to others not working in this context, there are a lot of problems and severe misunderstandings. The Crypto Wars still haven’t been decided in favour of mathematics. Real people prefer end-to-end encryption over insecure communication all of the time. Proposals of severely damaging information security for all of us by using sanctioned malicious software are still being debated in parliaments. Backdoors, covert or otherwise, are no line of any defence, as many military strategists will readily tell you. Marcus Hutchins was in the news recently, because of claims that he developed a strand of malware tied to attacks on financial institutions. While you can debate all you want about

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1708, 2017

DeepSec 2017 Preliminary Schedule published

René Pfeiffer/ August 17, 2017/ Administrivia, Conference, Training

After two weeks of intense reviewing we have published the preliminary schedule for DeepSec 2017. There are some blanks to fill, but this will be done in the coming weeks. We still have to do some reviews and wait for the speaker’s confirmation. In case you noticed, the ROOTS track is not filled yet. The call for papers was extended to 26 August. This means the ROOTS schedule will be published at the end of September. We have to give the programme committee ample time to review all submissions. So if you want to present your research at ROOTS 2017, please ready your submission. Science first!