2012 23 03 Birmingham

Date: Friday 23rd March :::

Location: Service Birmingham Offices

B1 Building

50 Summerhill Road

B1 3RB Birmingham

Talks

Tom MacKenzie will be reprising the talk he gave at Black Hat Abu Dhabi.

Meticulous attackers can subvert audit controls to the point where a compromise is almost undetectable. We look at the tools and techniques which can be used by attackers to minimise evidence left behind and propose a novel strategy for managing this issue.

Fully identifying the method and impact of a data compromise is heavily reliant on the forensic information available to investigators. Commonly this is dependent on having logs for the compromised period. However, in the cases where an attacker has taken steps to reduce their footprint on the system, investigations can be more challenging.

We explore the various evidential sources which are commonly used to identify the extent and method of a web application compromise. We then discuss an attack which, due to its nature, is more complicated to identify and understand. The presentation will draw together the techniques used in investigating a data compromise and create an attack which is designed to completely compromise the web server while leaving the least amount of evidence on the system.

Incident readiness specialists can often recommend that verbose logging is put in place. Logging such as full http request and response logging fits the bill for the investigator but by their nature these logs have serious drawbacks for the day to day management of the server; large storage requirements, incidental storage of sensitive data and performance issues are common problems.

We suggest a new approach, restricting access or logging anomalies at the framework level. By blending the information gained at the framework level with automated application profiling techniques we can create heavily targeted logs bespoke to the specific application. This can be implemented for all applications regardless of whether source code is available. This method gives us the best chance of keeping logging to an absolute minimum whilst ensuring that techniques used to minimise forensic evidence left by an attack are unsuccessful.

Ian Williams will be giving his first ever public talk (be gentle!) on how to get into web application security from a learners perspective. Ian will be looking at the Damn Vulnerable Web Application and how it can be used to learn web application security. There are plenty of books out there on web app security, SQLi and XSS. Reading about them is one thing, but if you are really going to understand how they work you've got to get your hands dirty. We will be looking at one environment in which you can practice what you've read about without fear of getting sue'd, but still getting some exposure to some of the techniques that are used to try any mitigate the attacks you are doing.

Uzi Yair, the cofounder and CEO of GTB Technologies, will be giving a talk on DLP. The talk will cover the mitigation of data loss prevention together with the web application security – threats, problems, needs and trends Why is Data Loss Prevention important for web application security experts ? According to a Gartner CISO survey, Data Loss Prevention (DLP) is the biggest priority for 2012. Data Loss Prevention (DLP) is typically defined as any solution or process that identifies confidential data, tracks that data as it moves through and out of enterprise and prevents unauthorized disclosure of data by creating and enforcing disclosure policies. Since confidential data can reside on a variety of computing devices (physical servers, virtual servers, databases, file servers, PCs, point-of-sale devices, flash drives and mobile devices) and move through a variety of network access points (wireline, wireless, VPNs, etc.) there are a variety of solutions that are tackling the problem of data loss, data recovery and data leaks. As the number of Internet-connected devices skyrockets into the billions, Data Loss Prevention is an increasingly important part of any organization’s ability to manage and protect critical and confidential information.

Speaker Bio's

Thomas Mackenzie is an Application Security Consultant for SpiderLabs in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. SpiderLabs is the global advanced security services team within Trustwave responsible for:

Security Analysis and Testing Incident Response and Investigation Research & Development Thomas has been asked to present technical talks at a number of international events including, DeepSec, Bsides Chicago and BlackHat Abu Dhabi. Thomas also speaks at a number of domestic venues including; OWASP events across the UK, PHP London, Marketing Event around WordPress, DC4420 and guest lecturing on application security and vulnerability management at a number of UK universities. Thomas is the founder of upSploit Advisory Management, an automated disclosure system that helps security researchers and vendors communicate vulnerability information quickly, easily and in an ethical manner.

Previously to Trustwave Thomas worked for security boutique in the North of England, where he worked as a security engineer in the web application security testing team. Before completing his move to SpiderLabs, he contracted for a number of companies providing consulting services in the area of web application security.

Thomas has founded a number of vulnerabilities in well known software i.e. Wordpress and a highly downloaded iPhone App.

Ian Williams is an Information Security Analyst for RWE IT UK, the IT provider for RWEnpower and one of the largest utilities in the UK. Ian is rather new to the security field having moved into it from a career in Wintel server support and software packaging and distribution. Always being one to have a tinker with things security had become a natural fit with Ian obtaining GIAC certifications GCIH, GAWN and GPEN in the 5 years since he started in the industry. Ian is a passionate supporter of the UK information security community and is working to pay back all of the support he has gained in the last 5 years by organising local security meetings such as OWASP and 2600 and speaking as a new commer to the industry, in the hope it will encourage more of the IT tinkerers to come over to the dark side!

Uzi Yair is the cofounder and CEO of GTB Technologies, is a leader and expert in the data leak prevention marketplace. Uzi leads the development of GTB's game changing technology; a technology which has solved the known DLP market limitation of false positive rates.