0203, 2013

Post-Crypto in a Pre-APT World

René Pfeiffer/ March 2, 2013/ High Entropy, Security Intelligence

There was a Cryptographers’ Panel session at the RSA Conference with Adi Shamir of the Weizmann Institute of Science, Ron Rivest of MIT, Dan Boneh of Stanford University, Whitfield Diffie of ICANN and Ari Juels of RSA Labs. You have probably read Adi Shamir’s statement about implementing (IT) security in a „post-crypto“ world. He claimed that cryptography would become less important for defending computer systems and that security experts have to rethink how to protect valuable information in the light of sophisticated Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs). „Highly secured“ Infrastructure has been compromised despite „state of the art” defence mechanisms. So what does rethinking really mean? Do we have to start from scratch? Should we abandon everything we use today and come up with a magic bullet (or a vest more appropriately)? Our first implication

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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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2801, 2013

A Security Conference is not a Flashmob

Mika/ January 28, 2013/ Mission Statement

Suddenly: Security Speakers! (This is the first part of a series which can be regarded as our “Mission Statements”.) No, this is not what a conference should be like: By some obscure coincidence 32 speakers emerge with a talk in their pockets and hit the stage, one after the other. Rather this is true: We are shaping our DeepSec and DeepINTEL events and those who know us a little bit closer are not surprised. We are searching for topics, we are soliciting submissions and we invite people to our stage whom we find interesting, ground-breaking, promising, surprising or just plain ingenious. Additionally we read our CfP submissions very carefully and often we discuss the submissions with the speakers if we are not fully confident where the talk leads to. We also discuss submissions with

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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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1312, 2012

DeepINTEL 2013 Call for Papers is open!

René Pfeiffer/ December 13, 2012/ Administrivia, Security Intelligence

During the opening of DeepSec 2012 we announced that there will be a second DeepINTEL seminar taking place in Summer 2013. We have successfully explored topics of security intelligence and strategic security at the past seminar. We wish to continue and ask you to send us submissions for presentations by e-mail. DeepINTEL is a single track two day event addresses mainly critical infrastructure, state organizations (administrative and law enforcement), accredited CERTs, finance organizations and trusted parties and organizations with a strong relation or partnership to the aforementioned. Due to the sensitive topics and the nature of the participants and speakers we will have a vetting process for participants. We’d like to know our audience, so that we all can talk freely and openly during the event. In addition there will be no recordings published

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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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1311, 2012

DeepSec 2012 Showcase: Cuteforce Analyzer

René Pfeiffer/ November 13, 2012/ Discussion, Security

The University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria will be showing the Cuteforce Analyzer at DeepSec 2012. This beast is a massively parallel computing cluster for cryptographic applications. The goals of this project was to develop a cluster framework and to evaluate suitable hardware. The cluster itself utilises two different types of co-processors, namely the well-known graphics processing units (GPUs) also used in super-computing, and field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). Both types of processors have their strength and weaknesses, both depending on the algorithm being executed on the hardware. The cluster framework connects both hardware platforms, and assigns computing tasks according to the advantages of the co-processor. Thus you get to use all the advantages; in addition the framework software makes sure that you can use the different hardware processors as a whole. The research team

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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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0511, 2012

Alien Technology in our Datacenters

Mika/ November 5, 2012/ High Entropy, Security, Stories

Sometimes when I watch administrators at work, especially when I start to ask questions, I get an uneasy feeling: “this is not right”. As it turns out many of the people who maintain, manage and configure IT or communication equipment don’t understand the technology they are using. At least not in depth. Mostly they have a rough idea what it’s all about but cannot explain in detail how it works and cannot predict what will happen if a few changes are made to the setup. Although I couldn’t put my finger on it I had a familiar feeling, something like a déjà-vu. Just recently when I browsed through my bookshelves it suddenly became clear: I reached for a science fiction classic, “Gateway” by Frederic Pohl which describes an alien race, the “Heechee”, which have

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