The Top 10 Reasons Why You Should Attend Hacker Halted USA 2011
- Participate and be part of one of the world’s most recognized information security conference.
- Gain perspective through keynote addresses on the current state of information security as well as emerging trends and threats.
- An information security conference with a comprehensive agenda. Choose from the various focused tracks covering critical domains of information security.
- Match your information and learning needs, and learn how to address everyday challenges.
- Expand and empower your own information security knowledge.
- Gain valuable insights from networking by sharing information.
- Be among the first to learn about the latest products, meet with potential clients and generate new business with valuable leads.
- Discover and evaluate new technology, products and services that are being showcased at this premier information security conference.
- Share the platform with some of the best and brightest of your profession.
Opportunity to network with the best subject matter experts in person and exchange your experiences.
Black Hat USA 2011 Promo Code – use code SEORBHUS to receive a $250 discount
Use code SEORBHUS to receive a $250 discount off Black Hat USA 2011 briefings.
Registration is at https://www.blackhat.com/html/bh-us-11/registration/bh-us-11-registration.html
Black Hat USA 2011
Black Hat USA is the premier security event where members of the security industry gather to learn from elite security researchers in the field. This year’s event will be hosted at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada July 30-Aug 4 and offer over 50 multi-day training sessions, feature 7 Briefings tracks with the latest research, and 2 workshop tracks dedicated to practical application and demonstration of tools.
Use code SEORBHUS to receive a $250 discount off Black Hat USA 2011 briefings Registration is at https://www.blackhat.com/html/bh-us-11/registration/bh-us-11-registration.html
CNN Interview with Kevin Mitnick (Former Hacker)
I ran across an interesting CNN interview with Kevin Mitnick (Former Hacker) as the guess. In the interview, he discussed the importance of having a personal firewall, being aware when using public wireless access points.
He later recommended the use of VPNs when using public wireless access, using a more secure browser such as Google’s Chorme as well as using the “FREE” tool known as “Personal Software Inspector” to let you know if your software is out of date.
Lastly, he suggest the use of two factor authentication for online activities when banking and using online email and tips for not using the same password by using ”Keypass”.
U.S. Government Offers Assistance to Lockheed Martin After Security Breach
News on Twitter buzzed recently as security professionals and hackers alike shared information pertaining to a network breach of top U.S. weapons manufacturer Lockheed Martin. Initially it was not immediately clear if any sensitive information was stolen or compromised, but late Saturday evening,Reuters and MSNBC reported “Lockheed Martin Corp., the U.S. government’s top information technology provider, said on Saturday that it detected and thwarted “a significant and tenacious attack” on its information systems network.”
The Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense assisted the company during the computer breach to determine the extent of the incident. It is believed access to Lockheed Martin’s network may be linked to a breach against RSA network earlier this year in March. RSA is the maker of the popular SecurID token, which are the little key chain dongles that generate numbers every 30 or 60 seconds to provide a secure way of logging into computers known as two-factor authentication. Hackers at the time made off with unspecified information related to SecurID data, but many security professionals believe the algorithm used to generate one-time codes supplied by the token were taken.
RSA has about 40 million tokens and 250 million mobile software versions deployed in over 25,000 organizations in various industries, such as banking, government, manufacturing and pharmaceutical to name a few.
Even though Lockheed Martin thwarted off the attacks on its network, organizations should take precautionary measures if they are using the RSA SecurID token system. The National Security Agency (NSA) releasedInformation Assurance Advisory No. IAA-003-2011: Recommended Actions for SecurID Users in Response to RSA Cyber Intrusion. This advisory expands on the information previously released by NSA via Information Assurance Alert No. IAR-001-2011: Mitigations for the RSA Cyber Intrusion, and provides additional guidance and recommendations.
Source: Politic365.com
PBS Website Hacked: States Rapper Tupac Shakur is Alive
A Hacker group known as “The Lulz Boat” hacked the PBS website on Sunday and posted a false story claiming the rapper Tupac Shakur who has been dead for 15 years is actually alive and living in New Zealand.
Officials at PBS Television confirmed hackers broke into the organization’s website and posted the false story about the deceased rapper and removed it off their website Monday morning.
The Lulz Boat hacking group stated they were “less than impressed” after watching the network’s program “WikiSecrets” and “decided to sail our Lulz Boat over the PBS servers for further… perusing.”
Many Wikileaks supporters found the programming to be an unfair depiction of the organization and Bradley Manning. Manning is a military intelligence analyst, who is suspected of leaking thousands of classified documents that ended up on the WikiLeaks website. The disclosure of these document have been deemed one of the largest leaks of classified material in U.S. history.
In conjunction to the false story, the hackers also posted login information of PBS journalist, contractors, internal PBS websites and a number of internal communications such as letters and emails to a public website.
Anne Bentley, PBS’ vice-president of corporate communications, said in an email “all affected parties were being notified of the issue.”
These types of compromises occur too often due to technology, configuration or policy weaknesses at some of our major organizations. Last week it was the New York Times site, this week it is PBS, who is next… your organization?
