Cryptography - The science of secrets
Details
Cryptography - The Science of Secrets
We live in an information age where data is the main asset of most organisations, encryption is one of the main methods of protecting this data. Cryptography is the practice and study of techniques used to ‘scrambling’ plaintext into ciphertext to facilitate secure communication and prevent adversaries from recovering the information being sent. Cryptography is used throughout modern day life to facilitate online payments, for digital currencies, to safeguard personal and sensitive data, to protect corporate & national secrets and has become so common place that it is hard to imagine life without cryptography. Failures in implementation and weaknesses in cryptographic ciphers have been commonplace in the cybersecurity world, with many recent high profile vulnerabilities e.g. Heartbleed, BEAST, DROWN, CRIME, FREAK, POODLE, LogJam, etc. As a result failures in cryptography has always been in the OWASP Top 10.
The OWASP Dublin chapter assisted by the Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT) School of Computing is pleased to dedicate a session to cryptography where experts in the field will examine various aspects of cryptography from history to modern day usage for both good and bad purposes. We are very excited to have such an expert line up of speakers and are looking forward to the evening. We will have some small prizes to give away as part of the evening.
This event will be held in the Gleeson Hall in Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT) Kevin Steet in the center of Dublin. A map can be found here (https://www.google.ie/maps/place/DIT+Kevin+Street/@53.3372988,-6.2695219,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x48670c2089d84a1d:0x6e1d03e3d62489ae!8m2!3d53.3372956!4d-6.2673332).
Tickets for this events will be managed through eventbrite:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cryptography-the-science-of-secrets-tickets-26337059855
Speakers
“The History of Cryptography”, Dr. Simon Singh MBE, Author
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Simon will be speaking about the history of cryptography and will be demonstrating an Enigma machine which was used to encrypt messages sent by the German military in World War 2.
Simon has worked for the BBC on many documentaries, has worked for CERN as part of the UA2 experiment and has written many science and mathematics books including ‘Fermat's Last Theorem’, ‘The Code Book’, ‘Big Bang’ and ‘The Simpsons and Their Mathematical Secrets’. In 1997 Simon began working on his second book, The Code Book, a history of codes and codebreaking. As well as explaining the science of codes and describing the impact of codebreaking on history, the book also shows that cryptography is more important today than ever before.
“Ransomware – when crypto is used to hold your computer hostage”, Candid Wueest, Principal Threat Researcher at Symantec Security Response
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Crypto ransomware has quickly emerged as one of the most dangerous cyber threats facing both businesses and consumers. These threats encrypt all user files with a unique key, before demanding a ransom for decryption. We will discuss why this tactic is successful, how the attackers compromise the computers and how the infection works in detail. We will conclude with some best practices on how to protect against such threats.
Candid Wüest works for Symantec's global security response team, where he has been going far beyond anti-virus signatures during the last twelve years. He analyses new security threats, formulates mitigation strategies and creates research reports on new emerging security trends – for example, threats to the Internet of Things. For three years, he worked as a Virus Analyst in the anti-malware laboratory of Symantec in Dublin, Ireland. Wüest has published various whitepapers and has been featured as a security expert in toptier media outlets including Forbes, BBC and many others. He is also a frequent speaker at security-related conferences including RSA, BlackHat and Area41. He learned coding and the English language on a Commodore 64. He holds a master of computer science from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) and various certifications.
TBD, Dr. Mike Scott, Dublin City University
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Dr. Scott is recognized in the world of cryptography as a leading authority on the subject of elliptic curve and pairing-based cryptography, and in 2002 published one of the seminal papers on the implementation of pairings, Efficient Algorithms for Pairing-Based Cryptosystems. Dr. Scott earned a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Queens University Belfast and also completed a one year Masters’ degree at Trinity College before gaining a Ph.D. on the topic of Optimal Control Theory from the University of Dundee, Scotland. He has a Google Scholar based H-Index of 32 and has published more than 75 papers in the field.
“Shining a light on the murky world of encryption”, Patrick Fitzgerald, Global Information Security Manager in ICON Plc
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With data moving from liability to commodity back to liability and becoming ever more accessible encryption has become a critical and often transparent component of modern business. This session will look at how encryption is used in modern applications in both the consumer applications and cryptolocker attacks. The same technology is used in both spheres and often the same mistakes are made. Without delving into too much technical details this talk will explore the evolution of this mercurial technology.
Patrick Fitzgerald has worked in the Information Security for 15 years. Starting out in Symantec analysing attacks, malicious hacking techniques and viruses including the world's first cyber weapon Stuxnet. Building on this experience he moved into consultancy doing work across many industries including the defence forces, government bodies and financial institutions. Currently working as Global Information Security Manager for a multi billion dollar clinical research organisation. There are few in the industry with experience as relevant and wide-ranging across both the technical and softer side of Information Security field.
TBD
Speaking about blockchain and cryptocurrencies and the experiences with cryptocurrencies.
Sponsors
This event was kindly sponsored by the following organisations who support the OWASP Dublin Chapter. Without sponsorship events such as this cannot happen and we are extremely grateful to each organisation for their continued support.
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Sponsors
Cryptography - The science of secrets