defcon

Hacker delves into secret world of warranties

LAS VEGAS -- A young hacker here at Defcon 20 has pulled back the dense curtain of text and ambiguity surrounding warranties to show consumers how they can hack the warranty system -- and to tell companies how to improve their warranty management.

"Darkred," as he prefers to be called, explained to a standing-room only session that it's the way manufacturers manage serial numbers and warranties that allows the system to be hacked.

"The serial number makes you the owner of a product," said the 17-year-old, a high school senior from Texas. Darkred declined to … Read more

Facebook aims 'bug bounty' at in-house network

Facebook is to widen its "bug bounty" program to reward researchers who spot holes in its corporate network.

According to a Bloomberg report today, the move will be announced at the Defcon hacking conference in Las Vegas.

Facebook already pays a bug bounty to outside hackers who report weaknesses in its products, but the move extends the program to its own infrastructure, too.

Rewarding "white hat" companies and individuals who unearth vulnerabilities in Web services and report them, rather than exploit them, is "not a new concept. The reasoning is thus: entice individuals with cash … Read more

How to stay safe at Black Hat and DefCon

LAS VEGAS -- From journalists hacking the press room Ethernet to RFID skimmers swiping your ID without even touching your credit card, the war stories you've heard about Black Hat and DefCon are true more often than not.

The best way to avoid getting hacked at the annual security conferences is to not show up. Go somewhere disconnected, like a nice mountain retreat, instead of hitting the paranoia pills with several thousand other security professionals and obsessives in Vegas' urban playground.

But if you must go to Sin City, there are some actions you can take to protect your … Read more

Defcon 20: Skillz, thrills for the whole hacker family

LAS VEGAS - You might not think that a hacker conference in Sin City in the summer is the best place to take the kids. But if you want them to learn some skills, know their digital rights and have some fun, I can't think of any place better. Oh, and there's some stuff for us big kids too.

Defcon, which turns 20 this year, runs Friday through Sunday, following the more corporate Black Hat conference, the newsy parts of which are tomorrow and Thursday.

Black Hat organizers had a rocky start to their week with a security … Read more

Apple to talk iOS security at Black Hat confab

Apple will not only be at this week's Black Hat security confab, but also offer a presentation there too.

Bloomberg today notes that Dallas De Atley, Apple's manager of the platform security team, will be on the scene in Las Vegas to host a security briefing on the company's mobile operating system.

"Apple designed the iOS platform with security at its core," the description reads. "In this talk, Dallas De Atley, manager of the Platform Security team at Apple, will discuss key security technologies in iOS."

An Apple spokesperson declined to provide further … Read more

When good Android apps go bad -- a security lesson

Security researchers testing Google's Bouncer malware detection system for Android apps have managed to submit a benign app and then slowly update it to add malicious functionality, one of the researchers told CNET today.

Nicholas Percoco, head of Trustwave's SpiderLabs, and colleague Sean Schulte will be discussing their research during a session at Black Hat and Defcon next week in Las Vegas entitled "Adventures in Bouncerland."

After Google launched its Bouncer system to protect apps in the Google Play Android market in February, the researchers wanted to see if they could turn a good app that … Read more

Black Hat, Defcon: All about hacking (roundup)

The conferences will dig into issues ranging from mobile malware and hacking to vulnerabilities posed by linking critical infrastructure systems to the Internet and corporate networks. There are bound to be some hijinks as well.

Hacker launches volunteer program for security professionals Hackers for Charity founder Johnny Long hopes computer and security skills can break the cycle of poverty and keep Uganda from becoming another Nigeria. (Posted in InSecurity Complex by Elinor Mills) August 8, 2011 4:32 p.m. PT

Lose your laptop? Change all passwords, pronto Stanford University researcher shows how to bypass Windows' built-in encryption that Web … Read more

Viruses: Destroying your systems for 25 years

LAS VEGAS--The hacker conference DefCon kicked off this morning with the rare public sighting of a now-archaic piece of technology: the 5 1/4-inch floppy disk. Mikko Hypponen, the chief technical officer for the Finnish security company F-Secure, waved the disk above his head to start off his history of PC viruses, and said, "This is Brain."

Hypponen was talking about a guest of honor housed on the disk: the original computer virus. Hypponen found the disk last year in a lockbox in F-Secure's headquarters in Helsinki, and he dove in, cracked the virus code, and found … Read more

ICANN hires Defcon founder as security chief

Jeff Moss, founder of the Defcon hacker conference and an advisor to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, has been named chief security officer for the nonprofit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

Moss has an illustrious past and is well connected in hacker communities and well respected by officials in the U.S. government and security industry. He has been running Defcon for nearly 18 years, since the days when he was better known, at least online, as "Dark Tangent." He also runs the Black Hat briefings security conferences held around the world and … Read more

Buzz Out Loud Ep. 1301: Apple waves the phishing flag (podcast)

Turns out, when you announce to the world that you've got 160 million users, all of whom are tied to a credit card, you kind of call the phishers your way like a horde of hungry zombies. Hence: Ping comment spam. Also, HP is going to actually produce memristors, 4chan is throwing birthday parties for sweet old men, and Boxee CEO Avner Ronen joins us to talk about why Apple TV doesn't scare him one bit. --Molly

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