2711, 2019

DeepSec 2019 Keynote: Computer Security is simple, the World is not – Raphaël Vinot and Quinn Norton

Sanna/ November 27, 2019/ Conference

Information security is too often seen as a highly technical field in computer science, and one where the more technical someone is, the more right they are likely to be. But security is part of systems of life, that not only include computers and phones, but systems of living, cultures, history, politics, and interpersonal relationships. Technical knowledge is important in those systems, but on its own, it accomplishes very little — as the sorry state of the computer security in the world demonstrates. Knowing how computers work doesn’t gives us an empirical knowledge of what people do with their devices, what their job is, what context they live in, what their adversaries want from them, what their capabilities or resources are. In this talk we will explain why listening is the most important part

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0911, 2016

DeepSec 2016 Talk: Obfuscated Financial Fraud Android Malware: Detection And Behavior Tracking – Inseung Yang

Sanna/ November 9, 2016/ Conference, Development, Internet, Report, Security

In Korea in particular, hackers have distributed sophisticated and complex financial fraud android malware through various means of distribution, such as SMS phishing, Google play, compromised web servers and home routers (IoT). In some cases, both smartphone and PC users are targeted simultaneously. Inseung Yang and his team collect mobile android malware via an automated analysis system, detect obfuscations and malicious packer apps. In his presentation Inseung Yang will describe trends of malicious android apps and obfuscated mobile malware in Korea. He’ll explain the policy methods for Korean mobile banking and the attack methods used by hackers, f.ex. the stealing of certifications, fake banking apps that require the  security numbers issued to users when they open their accounts, Automatic Response Service(ARS) phishing attacks in conjunction with Call Forwarding, and the requesting of the One Time Password(OTP) number. But

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2502, 2014

DeepSec 2013 Video: Europe In The Carna Botnet

René Pfeiffer/ February 25, 2014/ Conference, Security

Botnets serve a variety of purposes. Usually they are used to send unsolicited e-mail messages (a.k.a. spam), attack targets by sending crafted data packets, or to perform similar activities. The Carna Botnet was created by an anonymous researcher to scan the IPv4 Internet. The creator called the botnet the Internet Census of 2012. The nodes of the botnet consist of virtually unsecured IPv4 devices – modems and other network equipment. Point of entry where mostly Telnet management interfaces exposed to the Internet. Analysing the devices that were part of the Carna Botnet is well worth the effort. This is why we invited Parth Shukla (Australian Computer Emergency Response Team, AusCERT) to present his findings about the Carna Botnet at DeepSec 2013. „A complete list of compromised devices that formed part of the Carna Botnet

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1702, 2014

DeepSec 2013 Video: Hackanalytics – What’s hot, what’s not

René Pfeiffer/ February 17, 2014/ Conference

Penetration testing is much more than trying a couple of attacks and be done with it. The results matter, and you have to prepare them in a fashion they can be used afterwards. Putting defences to the test is not a matter of „yes, it works“ or „no, it doesn’t“. There are expectations of the customer. Furthermore you will run into situations which might not have been anticipated. Then there is the Art of Communication™. Missing means of communication or misuse of known means is widespread. At his presentation at DeepSec 2013 Alexey Kachalin put reporting and penetration testing into perspective. Listen to his talk and let himexplain you what’s hot and what’s not.

2609, 2013

DeepSec 2013 Workshop: Developing and Using Cybersecurity Threat Intelligence

René Pfeiffer/ September 26, 2013/ Conference, Security Intelligence, Training

The arsenal of components you can use for securing your organisation’s digital assets is vast. The market offers a sheer endless supply of application level gateways (formerly know as „firewalls“), network intrusion detection/prevention systems, anti-virus filters for any kind of platform (almost down to the refrigerator in the office), security tokens, biometrics, strong cryptography (just stay away from the fancy stuff), and all kinds of Big Data applications that can turn shoddy metrics into beautiful forecasts of Things to Come™ (possibly with a Magic Quadrant on top, think cherry). What could possibly go wrong? Well, it seems attackers still compromise systems, copy protected data, and get away with it. Security often doesn’t „add up“, i.e. you cannot improve your „security performance“ by buying fancy appliances/applications and piling them on top of each other. What

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2410, 2011

Dissection of Malware and Legality

René Pfeiffer/ October 24, 2011/ Discussion, Security

You have probably seen the articles about the 0zapftis (a.k.a. the German Federal Trojan) malware used by the German police for investigation. There’s a lot going on in Germany and the German parliament, so we’d like to point out the issue of dissecting governmental malware and its relation to common sense and the law. The politician Patrick Sensburg accused the Chaos Computer Club to have thwarted investigations and thus the punishment of potential perpetrators. This violates German law (§ 258 Strafvereitelung, to be exact, description is in German). So is it legal to analyse malicious software or is it illegal? Mr. Sensburg has already answered three questions regarding his statements in parliament. He clarified his message. He criticises that the code had been published on the Internet instead of contacting the appropriate government agencies.

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1710, 2011

Talk: Behavioral Security: 10 steps forward 5 steps backward

René Pfeiffer/ October 17, 2011/ Conference

How do you distinguish good from evil? Have you ever asked yourself this question? In order to avoid diving into philosophy let’s translate evil to harmful and good to harmless. What’s your strategy to find out if something is harmful or harmless? When it comes to food maybe you try a small bit and gradually increase the dose. This strategy fails for software since you cannot install a bit of code and install more if everything looks ok. Analysing the behaviour is the next analogy in line. Behavioural analysis is well-known to anthropologists, psychologists and most human resources departments. Does is work for code, too? If you look at your security tools you will probably find tools that use a rule-based approach; then there are signatures and some tools offer to detect/decide based on

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