I thought I would throw my list into the mix of other Security Twits that are posting about talks they are either going to or wish they were going to at Black Hat this week. Most of my picks have a pentest perspective to them (a lot like CG’s over at Carnal0wnage). Here is my tentative list of talks I plan on attending:
August 6th
10:00 to 11:00
Nmap: Scanning the Internet – Fyodor Vaskovich
If your a penetration tester, don’t miss this one…Fyodor is a legend (heck, even some girl at sexyhacking.com (NSFW!) thinks so…the man has stalkers! 😉 ) and I’m looking forward to hear about new and unique ways to use Nmap.
11:15 to 12:30
Black Ops 2008: Its The End Of The Cache As We Know It – Dan Kaminsky
Unless you have been living under a rock for the last month then you should know about this one. It will be crowded (like all of Dan’s talks) but well worth attending.
13:45 to 15:00
Client-side Security – Petko D. Petkov
Another not to miss talk in my book. Petko or better known as pdp heads up GNUCITIZEN which is one of the sites that I closely follow. GNUCITIZEN releases some amazing security research and are always on the cutting edge. As a bonus it looks like pdp will provide details of a QuickTime 0day for Windows Vista and XP.
15:15 to 16:30
Bluetooth v2.1 – a New Security Infrastructure and New Vulnerabilities – Andrew Lindell
This one should be different. I recently started gaining more of an interest in Bluetooth vulnerabilities. Andrew will “show that it is possible to pair with a device that uses a fixed (but unknown) password, even when the password is random and reasonably long”. Sounds interesting.
16:45 to 18:00
MetaPost Exploitation – Val Smith
This is one I am really looking forward to. This is one just for penetration testers. I saw Val Smith and HD Moore present last year on “Tactical Exploitation” and it was outstanding.
After hours…
The Pwnie Awards 2008
If I’m not totally beat I plan on attending this. Should be fun to check out before hitting some of the parties.
August 7th
10:00 to 11:00
Satan is on My Friends List: Attacking Social Networks – Shawn Moyer and Nathan Hamiel
I was tossed between this one and “Encoded, Layered and Transcoded Syntax Attacks”. However, I am really on a social network security kick as of late so I think I will attend this one. If it is lame, I’ll jump in the other talk.
11:15 to 12:30
Threats to the 2008 Presidential Election (and more) – Oliver Friedrichs
While not pentest specific…this one looks pretty interesting. The synopsis notes the following: “…we will discuss domain name abuse, including typo squatting and domain speculation as it relates to candidate Internet domains. We will present and demonstrate how widespread this activity has already become. Secondly, we will discuss the potential impact of phishing on an election.” Sounds cool!
13:45 to 15:00
Hacking and Injecting Federal Trojans – Lukas Grunwald
The “infection proxy” demo seems worth seeing! The other talk that sounds cool is the one Joanna Rutkowska is doing. I saw her talk at Black Hat last year. Joanna is a brilliant mind, but a *fast* talker…with the amount of technical detail she usually covers…it’s tough to keep up.
15:15 to 16:30
…Continuing “Hacking and Injecting Federal Trojans”. If it seems to suck, I’ll be at the following:
The Internet is Broken: Beyond Document.Cookie – Extreme Client Side Exploitation – Nathan McFeters, John Heasman, Rob Carter
or…
Get Rich or Die Trying – Making Money on the Web, the Black Hat Way – Jeremiah Grossman, Arian Evans
I can’t decide between these two, perhaps I will attempt to see a little of both! 🙂
16:45 to 18:00
Methods for Understanding Targeted Attacks with Office Documents – Bruce Dang
We all have seen a rise in this type of attack over the last year. It’s true…there isn’t a ton of information about the technical details of these types of attacks. Hopefully this talk sheds some light on what’s behind them and help with introducing some new prevention methods.
Wow. Packed schedule with lots of great talks! Looking forward to Las Vegas as well! Always a good time (if I can break even…it would be better). Oh, and hopefully I will be able to hook up with some of the other Security Twits during the week. I’ll be at Defcon as well so if anyone wants to have a beer hit me up on Twitter…or, just stop by the Podcaster/Blogger Meetup at Defcon 16. I’ll be there representing the Security Justice podcast.
Stay tuned for my Defcon 16 “talks to attend” post in the next few days.
I’m jealous! see you at Defcon though.