0302, 2015

Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) and its Security

René Pfeiffer/ February 3, 2015/ Internet, Security

Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is not new. Its history goes back to 1992 when several proposals for expanding the address scheme of the Internet were discussed (then know by the name of IP Next Generation or IPng). A lot has happened since RFC 1883 has been published in 1996. Due to the deployment of IPv6 we see now implications for information security. Several vulnerabilities in the protocol suite have already been discussed. DeepSec 2014 features a whole training session and three presentations about the future protocol of the Internet. First Johanna Ullrich talked about a publication called IPv6 Security: Attacks and Countermeasures in a Nutshell. The paper gives you a very good view on the state of affairs regarding security and privacy weaknesses. It is strongly recommended for anyone dealing with the deployment

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0202, 2015

Encrypted Messaging, Secure by Design – RedPhone and TextSecure for iOS

René Pfeiffer/ February 2, 2015/ Communication, Security

Encrypted communication is periodically in the news. A few weeks ago politicians asked companies and individuals all over the world to break the design of all secure communication. Demanding less security in an age where digital threats are increasing is a tremendously bad idea. Cryptographic algorithms are a basic component of information security. Encryption is used to protect data while being transported or stored on devices. Strong authentication is a part of this as well. If you don’t know who or what talks to you, then you are easy prey for frauds. Should you be interested in ways to improve the security of your messaging and phone calls, we recommend watching the presentation of Dr. Christine Corbett Moran. She is the lead developer of the iOS team at Open WhisperSystems. She talks about bringing

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0202, 2015

Encryption – A brand new „Feature“ for Cars

René Pfeiffer/ February 2, 2015/ Internet, Security, Stories

At DeepSec 2011 Constantinos Patsakis and Kleanthis Dellios held a presentation titled “Patching Vehicle Insecurities”. They pointed out that the car is starting to resemble more to a computer with mechanical peripherals (incase you haven’t seen their talk,  please do!). This is true for all types, not only the modern cars powered by electricity alone. But there is more. Modern cars are connected to networks (i.e. the Internet or the mobile phone network). This means that your method of transportation is part of the dreaded Internet of Things. Given the design flaws we have seen in talks given at DeepSec, there is no surprise that this is a  breeding ground for major trouble. The Allgemeiner Deutscher Automobil-Club (ADAC), a German motoring association, discovered a lapse in the communication between BMW cars and the servers

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0102, 2015

Reminder for the DeepINTEL Call for Papers

René Pfeiffer/ February 1, 2015/ Administrivia, Call for Papers

At the opening of DeepSec 2014 we announced the next DeepINTEL to be in Spring 2015. We have now finalised the date. DeepINTEL 2015 will take place on 11 / 12 May 2015, and it will be held in Vienna. The call for papers, already announced at the opening of last year’s DeepSec, is still open. We are looking for your submissions. Since we want to address security intelligence, we like to know everything about threats, risk assessment, metrics that give you an idea what you really see, forensics, and improvements on the way to detect and defend. We are definitely not interested in presentations about the cyber hype. We want to hear about real sabotage, real compromised systems; you know, reality and all that. Please make sure to send your ideas to cfp

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3101, 2015

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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1912, 2014

DeepSec 2014 Video – “The Measured CSO”

René Pfeiffer/ December 19, 2014/ Discussion, Schedule, Stories

The first recording of DeepSec 2014 has finished post-processing. Just in time for the holidays we have the keynote presentation by Alex Hutton ready for you. Despite its title “The Measured CSO” the content is of interest for anyone dealing with information security. Alex raises questions and gives you lots of answers to think about. Don’t stay in the same place. Keep moving. Keep thinking.

1512, 2014

Post-DeepSec 2014 – Slides, Pictures, and Videos

René Pfeiffer/ December 15, 2014/ Conference

We would like to thank everyone who attended DeepSec 2014! Thanks go to all our trainers and speakers who contributed with their work to the conference! We hope you enjoyed DeepSec 2014, and we certainly like to welcome you again for DeepSec 2015! You will find the slides of the presentations on our web site. Some slides are being reviewed and corrected. We will update the collection as soon as we get new documents. The video recordings are in post-processing and will be available via our Vimeo channel. We will start publishing the content soon. The pictures our photographer took during the conference are being post-processed too. We will publish a selection on our Flickr site.

2011, 2014

DeepSec 2014 Opening – Would you like to know more?

René Pfeiffer/ November 20, 2014/ Conference, High Entropy

DeepSec 2014 is open. Right now we start the two tracks with all the presentations found in our schedule. It was hard to find a selection, because we received a lot of submissions with top quality content. We hope that the talks you attend give you some new perspectives, fresh information, and new ideas how to protect your data better. Every DeepSec has its own motto. For 2014 we settled for a quote from the science-fiction film Starship Troopers. The question Would you like to know more? is found in the news sections portrayed in the film. It captures the need to know about vulnerabilities and how to mitigate their impact on your data and infrastructure. Of course, we want to know more! This is why we gather at conferences and talk to each

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2011, 2014

BIOS-based Hypervisor Threats

René Pfeiffer/ November 20, 2014/ Discussion, High Entropy, Security

The DeepSec 2014 schedule features a presentation about (hidden) hypervisors in server BIOS environments. The research is based on a Russian analysis of a Malicious BIOS Loaded Hypervisor (conducted between 2007 and 2010) and studies published by the University of Michigan in 2005/2006 as well as 2012/2013. The latter publications discuss the capabilities of a Virtual-Machine Based Rootkits and Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) / Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) vulnerabilities. Out-of-band management is sensitive to attacks when not properly protected. In the case of IPMI and BMC the management components also play a role on the system itself since they can access the server hardware, being capable to control system resources. Combining out-of-band components with a hypervisor offers ways to watch any operating system running on the server hardware. Or worse. It’s definitely something

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1511, 2014

DeepSec 2014 Talk: Why IT Security Is ████ed Up And What We Can Do About It

René Pfeiffer/ November 15, 2014/ Conference, High Entropy

Given the many colourful vulnerabilities published (with or without logo) and attacks seen in the past 12 months, one wonders if IT Security works at all. Of course, 100% of all statistics are fake, and only looking at the things that went wrong gives a biased impression. So what’s ████ed up with IT Security? Are we on course? Can we improve? Is it still possible to defend the IT infrastructure? Stefan Schumacher, director of the Magdeburger Institut für Sicherheitsforschung (MIS), will tell you what is wrong with information security and what you (or we) can do about it. He writes about his presentation in his own words: Science is awesome. You aren’t doing science in infosec. Why not? Seems to be the overriding message of @0xKaishakunin #AusCERT2014 This was one tweet about my talk

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1511, 2014

New Article for the DeepSec Proceedings Publication

René Pfeiffer/ November 15, 2014/ Conference, Security

In cooperation with the Magdeburger Institut für Sicherheitsforschung (MIS) we publish selected articles covering topics of past DeepSec conferences. The publication offers an in-depth description which extend the conference presentation and includes a follow-up with updated information. Latest addition is Marco Lancini’s article titled Social Authentication: Vulnerabilities, Mitigations, and Redesign. High-value services have introduced two-factor authentication to prevent adversaries from compromising accounts using stolen credentials. Facebook has recently released a two-factor authentication mechanism, referred to as Social Authentication (SA). We designed and implemented an automated system able to break the SA, to demonstrate the feasibility of carrying out large-scale attacks against social authentication with minimal effort on behalf of an attacker. We then revisited the SA concept and propose reSA, a two-factor authentication scheme that can be easily solved by humans but is robust

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1211, 2014

DeepSec 2014 Talk: The IPv6 Snort Plugin

René Pfeiffer/ November 12, 2014/ Conference, Internet

The deployment of the new Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) is gathering momentum. A lot of applications now have IPv6 capabilities. This includes security software. Routers and firewall systems were first, now there are also plugins and filters available for intrusion detection software such as Snort. Martin Schütte will present the IPv6 Snort Plugin at DeepSec 2014. We have asked him to give us an overview of what to expect. Please tell us the top 5 facts about your talk! Main research for my talk was done in 2011. I am quite surprised (and a little bit frightened) by how little the field of IPv6 security has developed since then. It is often easier to build attack tools than to defend against them. But to improve IPv6 network security we urgently need more detection

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2910, 2014

DeepSec 2014 Talk: Build Yourself a Risk Assessment Tool

Sanna/ October 29, 2014/ Conference, Interview

„The only advice I might give to everyone who is responsible for information security is that it is never about a tool or a methodology“, says Vlado Luknar. The never-ending quest for the “best” tool or methodology is a futile exercise. In the end it is you, the security specialist, who adds the most value to a risk assessment (RA) / threat modelling process for your company, claims Vlado Luknar (Orange Slovensko a.s. / France Telecom Orange Group).  In his talk at DeepSec Mr. Luknar will demonstrate that it is quite easy to capture your overall security knowledge in a home-made, free-of-charge tool.  But first, let’s ask Mr. Luknar a couple of questions: 1) Mr. Luknar, please tell us the top 5 facts about your talk! There is no problem with understanding existing RA

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2810, 2014

DeepSec 2014 Talk: Cloud-based Data Validation Patterns… We need a new Approach!

Sanna/ October 28, 2014/ Conference, Interview

Data validation threats (e.g. sensitive data, injection attacks) account for the vast majority of security issues in any system, including cloud-based systems. Current methodology in nearly every organisation is to create data validation gates. But when an organisation implements a cloud-based strategy, these security-quality gates may inadvertently become bypassed or suppressed. Everyone relying on these filters should know how they can fail and what it means to your flow of data. Geoffrey Hill has been in the IT industry since 1990, when he developed and sold a C++ application to measure risk in the commodities markets in New York City. He was recently employed by Cigital Inc., a company that specializes in incorporating secure engineering development frameworks into the software development life-cycles of client organizations.  He was leading the software security initiative at a major phone

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2010, 2014

DeepSec 2014 Talk: Safer Six – IPv6 Security in a Nutshell

René Pfeiffer/ October 20, 2014/ Conference, Internet, Interview

The Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) is the successor to the currently main IP Version 4 (IPv4). IPv6 was designed to address the need for more addresses and for a better routing of packets in a world filled with billions of networks and addresses alike. Once you decide to develop a new protocol, you have the chance to avoid all the mistakes of the past. You can even design security features from the start. That’s the theory. In practice IPv6 has had its fair share of security problems. There has been a lot of research, several vulnerabilities have been discussed at various security conferences. DeepSec 2014 features a presentation called Safer Six – IPv6 Security in a Nutshell held by Johanna Ullrich of SBA Research, a research centre for information security based in Vienna.

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