At The Linux Foundation's Open Source Summit North America, Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, discussed various topics related to Linux development and the challenges the open-source community faces. Torvalds addressed hardware errors, malic...
The irony was not lost on Johnny Long. On the silver screen, both hackers and zombies are typically associated with disaster, so the fact that he was at a zombie-themed security conference to speak about hackers making a positive difference in the world seemed satirical.
One of the biggest hacking conferences in the world, Def Con, took place earlier this month.
Cybersecurity talks included hacking cars, traffic lights and social engineering - where actors tried to get real companies to reveal compromising information.
The hacker who has presided for 22 years over what is today the biggest hacker conference in the United States talks to TIME about Edward Snowden, Dorian Gray and hackers' changing role in society.
It's that time of year again: The wonderful, terrifying week when hackers and security gurus descend upon Las Vegas to show off their skills and unleash presentation after presentation full of scary-sounding exploits. This year is no different. Over the previous week, we've heard tales of planes brought down by rogue code, snoops spying on your security cameras, and secretive, undetectable code that can turn any USB drive into an unstoppable malware vessel.
Some of the more eccentric members of the security industry show up for Black Hat each year, making it tough to stand out in the enormous crowd that flocks to Las Vegas for the A-list conference. But each year vendors manage to come up with gimmicks and gizmos that attract the throngs to their booths to hear a spiel or give up their contact information so they can receive sales calls when they get home. Here are some noteworthy examples from Black Hat 2014.
Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek have proven to be adept backseat drivers.
Noted for their car-hacking exploits, Miller and Valasek have gained fame at hacking conferences and on Fox News for forcing automobiles to do their bidding.
"The situation we're in with advertising is a lot like where the banks are, where everyone has struggled with the fact that you can't trust the other end of the connection," says White Ops CEO Michael Tiffany. "It's the same cookies, user information, etc. But one is real, and the other is fake."
Salted Hash is on the road this week. All week long, the blog will be updated with news, and various tidbits from Black Hat USA, B-Sides Las Vegas, and DEF CON 22.
Next week America's biggest hacker conference starts its yearly reign of controversy, and we've got a hotlist of DEF CON 22's most incendiary talks.
DEF CON returns to Las Vegas at the ripe age of 22 with four packed days of talks, expo, 303 Skytalks, panels, lockpicking, Queercon, social engineering sport, the Tamper Evident Village, Defcon Kids, and much more from August 7-10 at the Rio Hotel and Casino.
I do not often do this, but old friend is in trouble. Please stay with me as I tell this story.
It was around the year 2002, and I was in Brazil. I met two young college students who were very interested in Linux, and who impressed me with their enthusiasm and willingness to help others.
A presentation on a low-budget method to unmask users of a popular online privacy tool, TOR, will no longer go ahead at the Black Hat security conference early next month.
How secure is your wireless router? The Def Con 22 hacker conference aims to find out exactly how resilient off the shelf products are next month during a six-day hackathon.
Most organizations are very bad at computer security.
They don't patch well, and they have short, simple passwords that don't expire. They have dozens to hundreds of people in elevated groups. They don't have a clue who has which permissions in their environment.
At Google's Pwnium hacking competition, two new security exploits in Chrome OS were demonstrated, while at Pwn2Own a Chrome Web browser problem was found that also impacted Chrome OS. All three problems have now been patched.
Researchers on Wednesday cracked Microsoft's Internet Explorer 11 (IE11), Mozilla's Firefox and Adobe's Flash and Reader at the Pwn2Own hacking contest, earning $400,000 in prizes, a one-day record for the challenge.
