Episode list

Kids are wired to learn. Internet security threats continue to rise. By the year 2020, there will be 1 million vacant Information Security positions. Combining kids' natural curiosities to explore along with their relationship with mobile technology, the industry has an opportunity to fill the vacancies. This keynote explores STEM's success but the importance to include 'Hacking' into the acronym as a means to introduce a wider audience of future potential security practitioners to address the workforce shortage. A combination of use cases, hacking success stories, and lessons learned, we discuss the benefits of introducing younger students to ethical hacking and information security. We will future explore various programs which introduce basic skills through to advanced techniques used in the penetration testing field. Given the future of Internet security's reliance upon a fresh crop of graduating students, the session will describe how breaking the mold of traditional education systems are already embracing STEHM without understanding how to define rubrics. Now is the time to make STEHM the new STEM.

New truths emerge on the edges of our thinking, the Oort Belt of scientific paradigms. As Richard Feynman said, the critical fact that is both a fact and an anomaly can become the cornerstone of a new way thinking about things. But we have to walk a blade as well, staying imaginative but also reasonably sane in what we entertain and explore. All new ideas sound crazy at first, suggested Robert Galvin of Motorola, and they come from a lone voice. But over time, we all agree that we always thought so from the beginning. Richard Thieme has spent years on the edges, watching "unthinkable thoughts" move quickly to become the cores of new paradigms. The edge is becoming the center at a faster and faster rate and only collaborative efforts with serious accountability built in can ensure real breakthroughs. This talk provides a framework for doing just that.

The Internet and the telephone, once imagined to be profoundly democratizing, have evolved in ways that breathe new life into unchecked consumerism and authoritarian nationalism. A hope going back to the early cypherpunks is that cryptography might help - that its artful use might protect, restore, or expand democratic values threatened by technologies of surveillance and control. Is this hope remotely realistic? I offer no definitive answer, but will share my thoughts in this connection.

Brain based authentication is an emerging field that seeks to use brain signals as a form of biometric authentication. Due to the increased availability and decreased cost of portable electroencephalography (EEG) devices, which can record brain activity from the scalp surface, this technique has gained popularity in research and in the media. In this talk we will explain the science underlying brain based authentication, the advantages and limitations of this technique, and give a live demo of a brain based authentication prototype.

Eric Escobar will be presenting on wireless hacking concepts and will go into details on the CypherCon 2.0 wireless capture the flag.

Dan will discuss the history of hacking video game consoles from the Atari 2600 to today, including some of the landmark legal cases that helped to develop a consensus on what was legal. This presentation will also include the positives and negatives of working with older hardware to develop new games, both from the developers and from the publishers perspective.

Current schemes to protect user passwords like bcrypt, scrypt, and iterative hashing are insufficient to resist attacks when password digests are stolen. We present a modern cloud service, called Pythia, which protects passwords using a cryptographically keyed pseudorandom function (PRF). Unlike existing schemes like HMAC, Pythia permits key updates as a response to compromises. Key updates nullify stolen password digests, enable digests to be updated to the new key, and don't require users to change their passwords. The keystone of Pythia is a new cryptographic construction called a partially oblivious PRF that provides these new features.

The increasing use of databases in the storage of critical and sensitive information in many organizations has lead to an increase in the rate at which databases are the target of computer crimes. While there are some techniques and tools available for database forensics, they typically assume apriori preparation (e.g., detailed logging) and rely on built-in database features working properly (e.g., no hacking). Investigators, alternatively, need forensic techniques that make no such assumptions and tools that can be applied to a damaged or an already-compromised database system. In this talk we present DBCarver, a tool for reconstructing database content from database storage (disk, RAM, etc.) without relying on any metadata from the database, or needing metadata from the OS/file system. The tool uses database page carving to reconstruct both query-able data and non-query-able data (deleted and auxiliary data). We describe how the two kinds of data can be combined to enable a variety of forensic analysis questions hitherto unavailable to forensic investigators, including finding evidence of database tampering. We conclude with a brief demo of DBCarver.

An Introductory Guide for business that want to "improve security", but don't really know where to begin. This session will outline a strategy to get your company motivated to invest in security improvements. We'll also explore the TOP FOUR attacks being used today, and what you can do right now to protect against them and dramatically improve your security profile.

We have all heard the phrase, "Hindsight is 20/20." Usually this resonates as we stand across from our employer admitting some level of guilt for a recent disaster. What if we could predict the future with some degree of acceptable accuracy? What if we knew ahead of time which employee candidate would introduce risk to our organization? What if we were able to pinpoint which of the thousands of current, cyber security threats would have the greatest impact on our unique technology footprint and prioritize those in real time for remediation? What if we had the ability harvest and incorporate the limitless data available both privately and publicly into our decision-making processes without investing millions? This session will answer those questions and more as we explore the data mining and machine learning options available to all of us using only the technology resources we have at our disposal. We will be looking at security specific use cases for predictive analytics that will appeal to all security professionals. We will look at insights and opportunities that can be realized from public data repositories and social media sites where even the most private of us reveal more than we know. Every participant will leave with the knowledge and direction to begin incorporating machine learning and "AI" into their regular deliverables. They will learn what tools are available, what value each of those tools can provide, and what data can yield the greatest results in the shortest amount of time.

Find out what goes into making the special CypherCon 2.0 badge.

Get the REAL story of the CypherCon 2.0 badge creation and manufacturing straight from the creators themselves in this informative panel.

Password auditing is more important than ever before. We take a deep dive into some password cracking tools you probably have never seen. Implementing a unified cluster interface allows you to complete password audits faster and gives collaborative teams access to information in real time. What about cracking unknown and obscure hashes? MDXfind covers a very wide array of hash algorithms and iterative hash types which can all be ran simultaneously. Come see how these tools work and how they can make your next password audit or penetration test a step above the rest.

In order to achieve end-to-end encryption, build zero-knowledge systems, and provide users with the convenience they are accustomed to, Web 2.0 is pushing cryptography to your browser. From secure e-mail to credit card transactions, our security is increasingly dependent on the integrity of client side javascript. The opportunities for exploit are many but with every new vulnerability has come a potential mitigation, all in an attempt to strong arm these sensitive operations into the browser, limit an applications liability, and keep us users happy. In my presentation, we will look at the fundamental nature of javascript, web browsers, and conclude what level of protection, in the best of circumstances, JavasCrypto affords the end user.

Everyone from experts to vendors to talking heads espouse the benefits of threat intelligence. It's spoken of as a nebulous panacea that only a select few can dole out like ambrosia, and it is beyond the mere ken of the average security professional. This talk is going to cover the basics: what is threat intelligence, how to discern wheat from chaff, where you can find it, how you can use it, and where you can learn more about it.

In his talk, Brad will be discussing where we have come from as a hacker culture, and how the past dictates the present. He will touch on some of the famous and infamous hackers in Wisconsin's history, going back to the 1800s. He will then discuss some of the technology that has come out of Wisconsin that has allowed us to practice and perfect our craft. Wisconsin is home to more than just beer and cheese, and he plans to take the listener on a journey through our history, touching on people and events that are not well known, in addition to the history that we may have forgotten about. This talk will touch on people, places, and things important to not only the CypherCon 2.0 attendees, but to our future generations. It is up to us to pass that torch.

When I took on the world of AppSec, I thought many of my life lessons in network security operations would carry over. I found out that it didn't work that way. As I progressed in AppSec, I soon discovered many other folks were like me but had no idea what to do or where to start. From a security operations world looking glass, I want to give a presentation on how to think, what terms to use, what tools to use, and where to go to learn. If you are a seasoned AppSec pen tester, this presentation isn't for you. If you've been doing Sec Ops, this is probably for you.

A surprising amount of information can be intercepted by listening to raw WiFi signals. WiFi devices are continuously broadcasting information that can be use to track people's movements and even to infer things like when security cameras have detected motion. And this data can be intercepted from blocks away, without even being connected to any WiFi network. Come learn about some of the techniques that are almost certainly already being used by governments and corporations to track us all, and what can be done to help prevent it.

WordPress comes bundled with several polyfills for PHP random number generation. I'll explain why we need them, how we maintain them, and share a horror story or two. I'll cover activation keys, nonces, password generation, single and multisite, and other related things. Friendly and fun for all experience levels, ages, and professions. Q&A strongly encouraged.

Dave Roebke gives an interesting talk about Soviet MiGs at CypherCon 2.0.

Data exfiltration and insider threats are constant worry at most organizations, which has lead to companies implementing DLP but about half of employees have admitted to taking data from a former employer according to a recent survey. So why does this still happen? The problems with DLP have multiple causes from poor stakeholder engagement (not knowing what data to protect), being put in to fulfill regulatory requirements (for just the checkbox to pass an audit), generates way too many alerts, or not being put in as part of a larger strategy. During my talk, I'll describe about how to tie all these issues together so you can get your arms them so you can start fixing it. And no, it's not (just) using UBA.

Ransomware on the refrigerator, back-doors in the tea kettle, and vacuums that know when you are home may seem like jokes, but with Internet of Things devices expanding into our lives this will be the reality without better security. Through vulnerability and attack demonstrations in common scenarios, I demonstrate how security weaknesses in IoT devices put user privacy at risk from external and internal threat actors. Manufacturers and security professionals must work together to improve the security of IoT so that these devices are truly worthy of being exposed to the hostile Internet. By combining improved built-in security and increased user awareness for managing IoT security, these devices can continue to provide innovative functionality without sacrificing security and privacy.

In this talk Zapp will walk you through how he went from barely knowing how to solder to building 175 electronic badges for DEF CON. He will detail the steps he took including projects he used to learn just enough to design, code, and produce the badges as well as share many of the screw-ups along the way. Finally, he will share a preview of the group's DEF CON 25 badge.

After spending nearly 13 years working for the Department of Defense, I ventured out into the private sector to consult and advise on matters of information security. On many occasions, after explaining some basic security concept to a customer and outlining what they need to do to be secure,I often heard the retort, "yeah, but we don't need DoD level security." Well, after twenty years in the private sector, and especially over the past 2-3 years with the proliferation of data breaches against major companies, I find myself wanting to reply, "yeah, you really DO need DoD level security!" What does this mean? Probably not what you are thinking. This talk will start with an overview of the foundation nature of data security, highlight the major tenets or goals of data security, introduce the risk equation, discuss how and why so many companies so often fail at implementing the basics of data security, and explore some ways that a DoD-centric approach to data security might be implemented in the private sector. Brainstorming, discussion, dissension all welcome.

The closing ceremony of CypherCon 2.0 from 2017.