DefCon 18 in Review

Event-Related News:

• Black Hat too commercial for you? – networkworld.com
  Black Hat and DefCon share the Las Vegas stage this week with Security B-Sides and other security events.
• How to follow #Blackhat / #Defcon / #BsidesLV without being there (updated x4) – security4all.be
  Keep an eye on the Security Bloggers Network (RSS) and a Technorati search (RSS). A lot of security bloggers will be covering the event.
• Hackers With Enigmatic Motives Vex Companies – nytimes.com
  And the companies promise to work with the hackers to fix the problem and give them the appropriate credit for finding the flaw.

Presentations and Keynotes:

• Cellsite Spoofing Now A Reality
  A security researcher created a cell phone base station that tricks cell phones into routing their outbound calls through his device, allowing someone to intercept even encrypted calls in the clear.
  • Practical Cellphone Spying – tombom.co.uk
  • Hacker Spoofs Cell Phone Tower to Intercept Calls – wired.com
  • Privacy concerns at Defcon – tombom.co.uk
• Extreme-Range RFID – tombom.co.uk
  My equipment is capable of far more but I hit the limit of my range; a chainlink fence a few hundred yards away was reflecting the RF power, meaning that more power led to greater interference and hence lower range.
• Biometric and Other Locks Fail to Foil Hackers at DefCon – wired.com
  The lock that would seem to have thwarted them the most was actually one of the easiest to crack.

• DefCon 18 Official Badges – hackaday.com
  The new design has a lot of goodies packed into it, most notably a 128×32 LCD display.
• 2010 Ninja Party badge – hackaday.com
  The badges come in hand held gaming format, with a d-pad and two buttons.
• Exclusive Sneak Peek: DefCon Ninja Party Badge – wired.com
  A hacker group known as the Ninjas has created what may be the best DefCon badge ever.
• Official Ninja Badge Page – ninjas.org

Tools:

• Blackhat and Defcon PoC code released – secmaniac.com
  This talk was the powerful ability to perform advanced tasks through PowerShell and how you can utilize PowerShell on penetration tests.
• drivesploit: drive-by download testing framework for metasploit – drivesploit.org
  We will demonstrate how easy it is to defeat automated detection mechanisms and overview commonly used techniques.