Last week, my colleague Filip and I went to CYBER_CON, one of the biggest cybersecurity events of the year. I'll share the adventure starting with catching an early train before 6am in the following lines. CYBER_CON
A day full of forensic analysis and sneaky server defense
The day before the conference, the organizer created a varied selection of workshops that I could not miss. I had the opportunity to practice network traffic analysis with several interesting tools, such as Arkime and ELK stack, all under the guidance of NUCIB. In addition, I was involved in a very challenging simulation where we had to defend a server under a constant onslaught of attacks. The organizers surprised us with new, insecure vectors, and with so many threats it was extremely difficult to keep the service active while successfully eliminating all attacks. Locked Shields simulace
Inspiring lectures and new perspectives on cyber security
The conference programme was varied and enriching, but a few lectures stood out. For example, I was interested in the lecture on the Chernobyl accident, which discussed a number of faulty safety procedures that preceded the tragedy. This story was a great reminder of the importance of following safety protocols. Another interesting point was the statistics from phishing tests presented by Pavel Matějíček. These statistics showed well-exploitable scenarios that inspire our phishing tests. A bit scary then was the reality of the open-source malware AsyncRAT, which showed the ease of access for anyone to a tool that can attack an unprepared adversary.
Disagreement with our competitors
The third day brought a surprising opinion from discussions with competitors. The idea that it is more worthwhile to test for vulnerabilities than to secure companies was mentioned. I believe this opinion stems from their strong focus on government contracts, where such testing is often a lucrative business. However, I disagree with this approach because I believe that prevention and proactive protection are the foundation of cybersecurity. At Safee, we also create security products for small and medium-sized businesses that cannot afford to remain vulnerable. After all, security is not just about multinational companies, it's about protecting all entities that face increasingly sophisticated threats.
Conclusion
Finally, a big thank you to the organisers for a well organised event and to the speakers for their stimulating presentations. During the evening networking it was nice to meet interesting new colleagues at the DCG420 meetup and a big thank you to my colleague who came with me not only to this event and with whom it was a pleasure to discover Brno and meet new people. DCG420
Honza Krakovský