Sean Michael Kerner

Mikko Hypponen chief research officer at security firm, F-SecurePhoto: Sean Michael Kerner The dreaded Conficker botnet may have been an April Fools Day bust, but months later it is still an active threat according to security researchers. At the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas, Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at security firm F-Secure, […]

From the ‘Hackers for Charity‘ files: LAS VEGAS. For many, the term ‘Hacker’ is something to be feared. But after sitting through Johnny ‘I hack stuff’ Long’s Black Hat session titled, “From Me to We’ – the definition of hacker needs to be redefined. Long told the capacity crowd that he quit his job and […]

Charlie Miller (left) and Collin Mulliner present at Black HatPhoto: Sean Michael Kerner LAS VEGAS — SMS is a standard feature on hundreds of millions of phone globally and according to a series of researchers it’s also insecure. At the Black Hat security conference, multiple researchers took the stage to detail how they were able […]

From the “Black Hat as job fair” files: LAS VEGAS. Last year, US Government made a plea to hackers at Black Hat to join the government. Did it work? Marcus Sachs, executive director of government affairs and national security policy at Verizon and a former government employee argued that the DHS has created a disincentive […]

From the ‘I‘ve always wondered‘ files: LAS VEGAS. I’m in the super mega Feds vs Ex-Feds panel now at Black Hat and already I’ve learned something I didn’t know. There is a divergence of opinion in the security industry about whether or not people should buy zero-day exploits. Tipping Points has a whole business model […]

From the ‘they told us so’ files: Last month Joe Grand explained that there were flaws in parking meter systems. Today at Black Hat he explained how he found those flaws and what he was able to do with them. In a nutshell Grand was able to reverse engineer the Smart Cards used in San […]

From the “how many times have you downloaded it?’ files: Mozilla’s Firefox is nearing a major milestone – 1 Billion downloads. That’s BILLION with a B. Now that’s not a billion users, mind you it’s downloads and hey who among us hasn’t downloaded Firefox more than once? There’s a counter up on Twitter, updating every […]

LAS VEGAS — Microsoft has long dealt with insecure ActiveX controls through what’s known as a killbit, a means in its Internet Explorer browser of limiting the danger by locking out specific ActiveX controls. Until this week, getting visibility into the killbit itself was not an easy task. Thanks to a new tool called Killbit […]

From the ‘fed man talking‘ files: LAS VEGAS. Robert Lentz Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense in both the Bush and Obama administrations and the first Senior Information Assurance Official for the Department of Defense serving since Nov 2000 took the Black Hat stage this AM talking about US cybersecurity. In Lentz’s view the US needs […]

Security researcher Dan Kaminsky speaks at Black HatPhoto: Sean Michael Kerner LAS VEGAS — Security researcher Dan Kaminsky made waves last year with his dramatic DNS security flaw that could have undermined the security of the Internet. This year at Black Hat, he’s back with another critical issue affecting the security certificates that secure Web […]

From the ‘txt’ing is dangerous‘ files: LAS VEGAS. Between 11:15 and 12:30 AM PT today, security researchers Charlie Miller and Collin Mulliner will publicly show off a highly exploitable SMS flaw in Apple iPhone (at least it is at the time of this blog post). Going a little deeper the flaw isn’t just an iPhone […]

From the ‘be careful who you certify’ files: LAS VEGAS. Earlier this year security researcher Moxie Marlinspike turned the world of SSL security on its head with a presentation at Black Hat DC. Here in Vegas, he’s expanding his tool SSLstrip with a series of improvement that will make the tool even more powerful. “On […]