Archive for Conventions
Author: Myrcurial
January 24, 2008 at 3:06 pm · Filed under Conventions, SCADA Security
Still attending S4 - and the quality of the speakers continues it’s lumpy lurching way towards the goal.
Currently watching Langner discuss Threat Modeling in SCADA — except he’s gone right off the bleepin rails.
I mean WAY OFF THE RAILS. Offensively off the rails.
How do you create a presentation which goes all Giuliani off the top and invokes 911 - continues with the Islamist threat - launches into a discussion of fatwa and right off into fantasy land.
I feel bad for Dale - this is double-plus-ungood.
Langner should not be listened to - he should not be given a stage - he’s propagating the same kinds of myths that pervade the “control systems engineers” world - that SCADA is too hard, that hackers aren’t interested, that the bad guys are on religious missions of hatred, that the war on moisture is ok.
He closed with a eulogy for Richard C. Rescorla of Dean Witter / Morgan Stanley who predicted the plane attacks on 911.
Sigh. I don’t want to forget what happened on that day in New York, but I refuse to live a life of fear. More people need to jump off the fear bandwagon.
The previous piece - on the plans for the mandatory PCTs for California by Grant Gilchrist of EnerNex - was quite good. I think that he may be in a position to do good things - especially by having some people look at implementation level issues.
Tags: S4, SCADA, Langner, EnerNex, PCTs, bad advice, sycophant
Author: Myrcurial
January 24, 2008 at 10:23 am · Filed under Conventions, SCADA Security
Back at S4 again for the day.
This morning started with a serious smackdown laid on the control systems folks by Dave Aitel from Immunity Inc.
It was interesting watching the faces in the crowd as they heard statements which were uncomfortable.
Currently watching Julian Rrushi from the University of Illinois talking through some of the intricacies of IEC 61850. While I appreciate (yet) another protocol - especially one which is deterministic - I can see too many opportunities for implementation level screwups in this new protocol.
I’m going to have to miss the next session due to a meeting, but I’m looking forward to three sessions this afternoon - Key Management for Advanced Metering, SCADA Threat Modelling and OPC Unified Architecture Exposed.
Tags: S4, SCADA, Immunity Inc, Dave Aitel, Cryptography, Threat Modelling
Author: Myrcurial
January 23, 2008 at 10:41 am · Filed under Conventions, Education, SCADA Security
I’m not going to attempt a liveblog - I’m actually mostly focused on the event.
Currently watching the Wurldtech discussion on Safety and Security and how to use knowledge that you’ve developed about safety to drive how security is done.
Should I see something interesting - I’ll be sure to post about it. In the mean time, at least people are paying attention to what matters - a few physical people (based on what I can see on the feed) and lots of us virtually (webex sucks, but it’s better than having someone from TSA fooling about with my shoes and touching all my stuff with the ridiculous wand-of-sniffery.
Tags: S4, SCADA, Conferences
Author: Dave Lewis
January 22, 2008 at 5:01 pm · Filed under Conventions
When I got home from work today I paused in front of the house.
Snow. A lot of it. Great.
I pulled out the shovel and dug into the (thankfully) light powder snow that was waiting for me. With 5 cups of coffee coursing through my veins I managed to get the task done in short order. Old man winter safely held at bay, I wandered inside and slumped into my office chair to check the email.
Then, I saw this,
Dear Dave,
Thank you for registering for RSA Conference 2008, April 7-11, at Moscone Center in San Francisco. We are pleased to welcome you as an accredited press/analyst attendee.
Kick ass! (composing self) I’m going to be covering the RSA 2008 conference as an accredited security blogger. Wow! That’s amazing! Well, first off I’d like to thank the academy…
This is a great surprise when I consider that Black Hat doesn’t even respond to my press pass inquiries. Ah well. So, if you’re going to RSA 2008 be sure to say hi. I’ll be madly flying around snapping pics and typing up a storm.
If you plan to go register now to save some money as the price goes up March 7th.
Tags: RSA 2008 Press Pass, RSA 2008, Security Blogger, Accredited Security Press
Author: Dave Lewis
January 15, 2008 at 7:27 am · Filed under Conventions, Forensics
Guidance announced yesterday it will be leading a seminar on how to manage the complex, large-scale intrusion investigations at the U.S. Department of Defense Cyber Crime Conference 2008. Guidance Software’s seminar will be held on Thursday, January 17, 2008 at the Renaissance Grand Hotel in St. Louis, Missouri for those of you who may be interested.
The presentation entitled, “Large Scale Incident Response Best Practices and Case Study Analysis,” will cover a range of topics such as malware analysis, tips for assembling an effective team during an investigation and identifying and containing affected machines. It will be led by Jim Butterworth, Guidance Software’s Director of Incident Response and Federal Services, who has more than 14 years of hands-on experience in computer network security and has dedicated 20 years of distinguished and highly decorated service to the U.S. Navy.
Being a long time EnCase user I can safely say that this will be a good preso. I have been fortunate enough to attend several EnCase training sessions at their Pasadena office and I was quite pleased with them.
Site Link
Tags: Guidance Software, EnCase, Incident Response
Author: Dave Lewis
January 12, 2008 at 4:39 pm · Filed under Conventions
There seems to be no end to pranks and jokes being had by folks these days. Humour is a great release as long as it doesn’t go too far. Apparently a staffer from Gizmodo (full disclosure, I once applied for a weekend editor position with them) aimed a device at banks of plasma screens at CES rendering them inoperable.
Not smart.
In a struggle (and it has been) for bloggers to be taken seriously this is a blow against us to be certain. From the site Webware we read this:
I would not be surprised to see Gizmodo banned from the show and possibly sued by either the CEA or the companies its bloggers harassed. For journalists (in my mind, all bloggers are journalists), legal and constitutional protection does not extend to mischief or sabotage. Publishing news reports, opinion, and satire are protected acts. Physical interference is not.
Agreed.
This is a case where someone went too far and as a result has possibly jeopardized conference attendance for the rest of us. These conferences (ie. CES) are for vendors to show their wares in an effort to make a buck. These folks can do without some half wit ruining what could be a future business opportunity for them. If you want to poke fun at the vendors from your respective site then fill your boots.
The Gizmodo response:
It was too much fun, but watching this video, we realize it probably made some people’s jobs harder, and I don’t agree with that (Especially Motorola). We’re sorry.
Not as sorry as the rest of us will be if conferences start banning other bloggers based on this nonsense. As for Gizmodo, the pain has already begun to kick in. The Consumer Electronics Assoc. dropped the boom on the Gawker Media owned site.
We have been informed of inappropriate behavior on the show floor by a credentialed media attendee from the Web site Gizmodo, owned by Gawker Media. Specifically, the Gizmodo staffer interfered with the exhibitor booth operations of numerous companies, including disrupting at least one press event. The Gizmodo staffer violated the terms of CES media credentials and caused harm to CES exhibitors. This Gizmodo staffer has been identified and will be barred from attending any future CES events. Additional sanctions against Gizmodo and Gawker Media are under discussion.
I hope this doesn’t mess things up for the rest of us.
Article Link
Tags: CES, Gizmodo Banned, Blogger Banned, CES Gizmodo Prank
Author: Dave Lewis
November 21, 2007 at 7:31 pm · Filed under Conventions
Today had a rocky start for me to be certain. The joy of not having a proper mobile solution for my day job. Sadly, there is dick all that I can do to fix that problem for the time being.
The first session that I managed to catch this morning was Dan Kaminsky’s talk entitled, “DNS Rebinding Attacks”. I had missed his presentation at Defcon this year due to a SCADA presentation that I couldn’t miss (but, wish that I did). The joy of it being a fledgling conference you had a nice intimate setting to watch all of the presenters. Dan’s was great. I especially enjoyed watching as he used a web browser as a proxy for an SSH connection. Creepy implications there. Of course the same guy that tried to square off with Joanna yesterday started in on Dan about the “infallible” nature of DNSSEC. Kaminsky made short work of him as well.
More after the jump »
Author: Dave Lewis
November 20, 2007 at 10:37 pm · Filed under Conventions
Day one for Sector began quietly enough. I missed the train that Myrcurial was riding on and had to catch the 8:07 to Toronto. A bit of a novelty to not have to combat traffic for a change. I sat down jammed my headphones into my ears and started to enjoy my morning regimen of The Herbalizer and Fatboy Slim. My serious caffeine depletion was taking root as I had been in a rush to make the train. Then I noticed the guy across the isle from me pull out his MacBook Pro. “Nice” I thought….
Then I noticed the Post-it notes from hell. I was stunned that from where I was sitting I could see ALL of his passwords. I could see his VPN login information for his company PASTED TO THE LAPTOP. So, taking a cue from Johnny Long I pulled out my cell phone and snapped this pic. From this angle I couldn’t see the info but, the guy standing over his shoulder sure did.
More after the jump »
Author: Dave Lewis
November 16, 2007 at 5:14 pm · Filed under Conventions
By invite only, eBay is aiming to set up its own security conference.
From PC World:
EBay plans to host its own security conference next February, called “Red Team eBay.”
The conference will be held on eBay’s campus here in San Jose, and will take a cue from Microsoft’s Blue Hat event, said eBay Chief Information Security Officer Dave Cullinane. It will be invitation-only, where security team members can meet and exchange ideas with industry experts. But unlike Blue Hat, the conference will be open to attendees from other companies.
In fact, this will be the second Red Team conference hosted by eBay. Earlier this year eBay quietly held its first Red Team conference, drawing participants from about 100 companies, Cullinane said. “This time I may make it a little smaller,” he said Wednesday in an interview at the Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) AppSec 2007. “It was literally 90 percent of Silicon Valley and most of the banks.”
I’ll keep an eye on the mail box for my invite.
Article Link
Tags: eBay Security Conference, Red Team Conference
Author: Dave Lewis
November 13, 2007 at 9:47 am · Filed under Conventions
Got your ticket? Here is a sampling of some of the speakers who will be appearing at the event in Toronto.
Keynotes:
Growing the Security Profession: Dr. Richard Reiner
Zen and the Art of Cybersecurity: Ira Winkler
Attack Trends and Techniques: What’s Hot!?: Steve Riley
A Law Enforcement Perspective: Carole Bird, RCMP
And some of the sessions on tap:
- “Process Control and SCADA: Protecting Industrial Systems from Cyber Attack” - Mark Fabro
- “Human Factor vs. Technology” - Joanna Rutkowska
- Black Ops 2007: DNS Rebinding Attacks - Dan Kaminsky
- Hacking Hollywood - Johnny Long
- “Data on Threat Evolution - What 47 Leading Security Vendors Are Seeing” - Ben Sapiro
I will be sure to check out Fabro and Sapiro. And the other speakers? Not too shabby at all. Wouldn’t you agree?
Sector.ca Speaker Schedule Line Up
Tags: Sector.ca, Security Conferences, Security Education, Security Conferences Toronto
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