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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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!

DeepSec 2017 Schedule, ROOTS, and Closing of Call for Papers

René Pfeiffer/ August 3, 2017/ Administrivia, Conference

Thanks a lot for your submissions! We are currently in the final phase of the review. Expect the first draft of the schedule for the end of the week. Important: Don’t forget that the Call for Papers for the 1st Reversing and Offensive-oriented Trends Symposium 2017 (ROOTS) is still open and was extended to 15 August 2017! Please submit and help us to put more science into infosec! Given the headlines in the IT (security) news we need all the facts we can get.

ROOTS 2017, DeepSec, and DeepINTEL Call for Papers are still open

René Pfeiffer/ June 26, 2017/ Call for Papers, Internet, Security, Security Intelligence

Our wonderful world of technology is full of surprises, bugs, intentional weaknesses, adversaries, defenders, vendors, and users. Some software just got more lines of code instead of a decent audit or refactoring. Everything is turning smart, but no one knows what smart really means. Big Data is all the fashion, Big Knowledge still isn’t. So there is ample opportunity for security research. And we haven’t mentioned recent weaknesses such as Stack Clash or broken hyperthreading yet. Strategy hasn’t evolved much either. Most high profile attacks seem to contain a lot of cyber, originating from Russia, USA, Israel, North Korea, or China. The context matters, as do the agendas of all parties involved. A thorough and careful analysis can shape the digital defence of your future. This is why we like to discuss methods, incidents,

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DeepSec welcomes SEC Consult as Sponsor for 2017!

René Pfeiffer/ May 12, 2017/ Conference, Security

Testing products, production code, security measures, or the overall security of infrastructure is hard work. The typical needs in term of information technology for a company or an organisation has become a variety of components that need to be maintained and hardened against attacks. The devil is in the details. In order to find critical weaknesses you need decades of experience, a thorough understanding of the technologies in use, in-depth knowledge of processes that touch information technology, and a decent portion of creativity to come up with ways around obstacles. SEC Consult, our long-time sponsor, has all of this – and more. They publish their findings and offer consulting for anyone needing extra security. Take a look at the House of Keys project, the IoT Inspector, or gaping holes in digital forensics software that

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DeepSec welcomes Digital Guardian as Sponsor for 2017

René Pfeiffer/ May 11, 2017/ Conference, Security

No event can be done with supporters, and so we welcome Digital Guardian as sponsor for the upcoming DeepSec 2017 conference! If you have data in your organisation, then you might be interested in talking to Digital Guardian’s experts, because they know a lot about what data does, where it lives, what endpoints really are, how you protect it, and how you keep exclusive access to it. Since data is code on most computing architectures, there’s a double benefit. Digital Guardian is a next generation data protection platform purpose built to stop data theft. The Digital Guardian platform performs across the corporate network, traditional endpoints, mobile devices and cloud applications to make it easier to see and stop all threats to sensitive data. For more than 10 years, it has enabled data-rich organizations to

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DeepINTEL Update, Science First Campaign, Early Birds, and other News

René Pfeiffer/ April 28, 2017/ Administrivia, Conference

The Easter break is over. We didn’t sleep (much), and we did not look for Easter eggs in software either. Instead we did a bit of work behind the scenes. DeepSec 2017 will have some more content due to the co-hosted ROOTs workshop. The full call for papers will be ready on 1 May 2017. We will publish the text here on this blog, and email it to interested researchers. In the meantime the DeepSec 2017 Call for Papers is waiting patiently for your submission. In case you haven’t noticed, the DeepSec and DeepINTEL ticket shops are online. Please book your ticket as early as possible! Every year so far we had some people at our conference who were very sad because their favourite training was not available. If you book early you’ll help us to secure

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DeepINTEL / DeepSec News for 2017 and Call for Papers

René Pfeiffer/ March 27, 2017/ Administrivia, Call for Papers, Conference

Changing code, layout or designs have something in common – deadlines. But you cannot rush creativity, and so the new design of the DeepSec web site took some time. The old design has served us well. We basically did not change much and used it since 2007. The new design follows the stickers we use for decoration at our conferences, the book cover of the DeepSec chronicles, and many other details we publish via documents – all thanks to the creative mind of fx. So thanks a lot fx! The content of our conference has also slightly changed. DeepSec 2017 will feature additional content, because we will introduce a third track filled with presentations from academic research. Given the fact-free discussions of information security and security in general, we would like to (re)introduce the scientific

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DeepSec Administrivia for 2017, the Year of the Cyber

René Pfeiffer/ January 20, 2017/ Administrivia, Conference

2017 is in full swing, and it didn’t wait long. December was full of „hacking“ news. It seems digital war(e)fare knows no break. We will address some of the issues in a series of blog articles. Also we have uploaded the DeepSec 2016 videos to Vimeo. Attendees and speaker will get access before we publish the videos for everyone. This is our review in case someone doesn’t like a video or needs to adapt the description. The date for DeepSec will be published soon, along with the date. We look to the fourth quarter of the year, as usual. The Call for Papers will be online in February. If you got some ideas, write them to us. We have plenty of topics to address. The most pressing problem was raised at the 33C3. Go

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