Sean Michael Kerner

Security researcher Charlie Miller is no stranger to hacking Macs and iPhone via their software. This year at the Black Hat security conference, however, Miller took aim at something other than the Apple’s operating system. Miller noted that normally he looks at more obscure parts of OS X and iOS but last year he saw […]

AS VEGAS. Hacker is not a bad word. That’s the assertion of Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, Program Manager, Information Innovation Office, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in the U.S Government. Zatko delivered the keynote address at the Black Hat security conference, a stage he’s familiar with, having formerly been a well known hacker with the […]

LAS VEGAS. The idea behind network neutrality is that everyone is supposed to get equal access on a network. It’s an idea that has political implications as well as technical ones for the network. At the Black Hat security conference this week, security researcher Dan Kaminsky detailed his plan to help users identify if the […]

LAS VEGAS. There was a time when Microsoft Office documents were easily exploitable by attackers, and those days may be on the way back. According to a pair of researcher presenting at the Black Hat conference today, Microsoft Office is still at risk, despite multiple security measure taken by Microsoft and others. Taiwanese researchers Sung-ting […]

There is a particular kind of flaw that keeps popping up in Microsoft security advisories. It’s a flaw that sits deep within the system with something known as user-mode callbacks. Targei Mandt, a researcher with security firm Norman is discussing the flaw in detail at the Black Hat conference this week in Las Vegas. In […]

LAS VEGAS. Ambassador Cofer Black worked for the CIA for 28 years and was a part of U.S. intelligence establishment in the 9/11 era. Black took the stage at the Black Hat USA security conference today in a keynote about lessons learned from 9/11. In Black’s view there are similarities to the pre 9/11 world […]

n the fast pace world of financial trading, nano-seconds count. They can mean the difference between profit and loss with millions of dollars on the line. In the race to make trading faster, has there been an oversight for security considerations? Security researcher James Arlen argues that there financial trading systems have traded security for […]

From the ‘Secure Wi-Fi‘ files: LAS VEGAS. There are some people that are afraid to connect to the Wi-Fi network at the Black Hat security conference. I’m not one of them. This year, Aruba Networks the show’s Wi-Fi provider is stepping up the security going beyond the basic PSK (pre-shared key) approach that every other […]

As the numbers of people are using Android smartphone continue to increase, security researchers are turning their attention to the mobile platform. One such researcher is Neil Daswani of Dasient. Daswani and his team scanned over 10,000 Android apps using behavioral analysis tools. The analysis was designed to identify if the apps posed any security […]

The annual Black Hat USA event kicks off this week in Las Vegas with security researchers set to discuss vulnerabilities in nearly every type of information technology. Over the years, Black Hat has created a mythos for itself as the conference where some of the most lethal hacking attacks are discussed and sometimes debunked. Black […]

From the ‘Linux Desktop Domination‘ files: There are only a few types of technology events where Linux desktops dominate — or should. One of them is the Black Hat USA event which runs this week in Las Vegas. Every year ahead of the event, there are always a long list of articles out about what […]

Mass attacks have given way to targeted attacks with unique forms of malware, according to a new report from Cisco, and that trend is accelerating. Cisco’s second quarter Global Threat Report found 287,298 unique instances of malware in June of 2011. That figure is more than double the 105,536 that Cisco found during March 2011. […]