Abertay Ethical Hacking Society run their fourth annual Security Conference: Securi-Tay IV

Securi-Tay [1] is an Information Security conferece held by the Abertay Ethical Hacking Society [2], and supported by the Abertay University in Dundee. The aim of the conference is to provide an opportunity to industry professionals, students and information security enthusiasts to attend and share knowledge and information. This year will be the fourth year the conference is taking place (hence the IV) and it will be held on February 27th, 2015. Personally, I believe this conference offers a fantastic opportunity to students to meet and network with experts in the area of security, share information and have a first glance on how their future in the security industry can be like. 

I was very pleased to get accepted to speak at the conference this year and I am already looking forward to it.

The Bug Bounty List - Bug Hunting

I started finding serious security issues and vulnerabilities back in 1998. Back then the community was so immature that I was getting so much grief every time I was trying to explain what I had found. The common response was "why did you check our system/application", "who told you to alter the input", "this was not suppose to happen, you broke it", "the others don't know to do this; why did you do it" and all sort of similar discussions. Unfortunately, back then they weren't any bug bounty or recognition programs for the poor security enthusiast like myself.

I am glad to see that the community starts becoming more mature and understands how valuable can be for a business the discovery of a security issue or a vulnerability by a "white hacker". I am also glad there are bug bounty programs out there which reward security researcher and security enthusiasts who discover security issues.

Safer Payments online, in-store and especially during the peak retail periods

Online shopping and retail in-store purchases dramatically increase at certain times, like during the recent festive period, and unfortunately these are also times when we see increases in skimming, phishing attempts, and cyber-attacks. Because of the number of incidents and the alarming statistics released over the years, consumers feel rather insecure when shopping online and more specifically every time they need to use their card details. Recent high profile data breaches have affected consumer’s confidence and the feeling of being insecure during a transaction, which in turn has had an impact on the number of purchase transactions. Businesses need to ensure that all necessary steps are taken towards the security of their customer’s data so that they can eventually bring them back into their trust. 

Enhancing your cyber defence through a physical security assessment

Physical Security Assessments can be viewed as a penetration test against the physical infrastructure of an organisation. Instead of the assessment of computer networks and services, buildings and physical locations are being assessed. During this type of assessment the overall physical security of the location of a building, the facilities and the access controls are in scope. Physical security is often overlooked and the consequences of a physical breach can have the same impact as a computer breach.

Vulnerability Scanners you should know about

The discovery and patching of security vulnerabilities can be a very difficult and a time-consuming task, especially without the use of a proper vulnerability scanner. 

The following, is a list of the most well-known vulnerability scanners currently available in the market. A security consultant should spend some time to familiarise himself/herself with these scanners. Find the scanner that is most suitable for your needs and use it to scan your network infrastructure for security vulnerabilities. Go through the reports these scanners generate and engage in remediating the vulnerabilities discovered. This can be an invaluable experience when it comes to becoming able to understand security issues affecting large network infrastructures. 

Some of these scanner can be used under a free license for personal use. 

01) Nessus - http://bit.ly/1prtrZ3

02) Nexpose - http://bit.ly/1NHBSML

03) CORE Impact Pro - http://bit.ly/19e7dWC

04) OpenVAS - http://bit.ly/1NHCdPy

05) QualysGuard - http://bit.ly/1MUn52l

06) MBSA (Microsoft Baseline Security Analyser) - http://bit.ly/1MJ2NCE

07) Secunia PSI - http://bit.ly/1iiTjGR

08) Retina - http://bit.ly/1MBNHzo

09) Acunetix - http://bit.ly/1PA8rfA

10) SAINTscanner - http://bit.ly/1RLtB9A

11) GFI Lan Guard - http://bit.ly/1RLt8V2

If you know of a vulnerability scanner that you have used and it is worth mentioning here, let me know and I will add it to the list.