OWASP Newcastle February 2025

We're back with our first event of 2025! We’ll be doing our usual two talks and pizza format.

Location: Opencast Software, Unit 2, The Kiln, Hoults Yard, Newcastle‑upon‑Tyne NE6 1AB.
There is free onsite registered parking. To register, attendees must enter their details into an iPad upon entering the Opencast office otherwise a parking fine may be issued.
Neither OWASP Newcastle or Opencast can assist with or be responsible for parking issues, you do so at your own risk.

Rough schedule:

1800 - 1815 Arrival and networking
1815 - 1830 OWASP Newcastle Welcome
1830 - 1915 Talk one
1915 - 2000 Pizza and networking
2000 - 2045 Talk two
2045 - onwards Pub?

Talk overviews:

Talk one
Title: Harassed by Hamas: Israel’s Cyberwar
Speaker: Andy Pannell
Speaker Bio: Andy Pannell is an accomplished application security lead with a keen focus on safeguarding product and cloud security for a prominent mobile ride-hailing company. His expertise lies in identifying vulnerabilities, implementing robust security measures, and ensuring the integrity of critical systems.
Outside the digital realm, Andy indulges in a passion that balances the binary code: endurance racing. Andy spends hours at racetracks, appreciating the symphony of precision engineering and adrenaline-fueled competition.
Talk Synopsis: This presentation examines (in my opinion) one of the most recently overused phrases in the media “cyber war”, and what it actually means in reality for us cyber security practitioners.
We will start by examining warfare, and review previous nation states attacks that have crossed the boundary into offensive cyber operations.
We will then focus on October 2023 and the tactics deployed by both Hamas and the IDF during the war, from a cyber perspective. To do this we will discuss reverse engineering malware samples, API security and DDoS attacks in detail.
Lastly we will conclude by looking at what the future of cyber warfare looks like, and what we can do to best protect ourselves / our organisations in such events.

Talk two
Title: Scaling Security Through Collaboration: The Role of Security Champions in Modern Organisations.
Speaker: Kimberley Graham
Speaker Bio: Kimberley is the Manager of People-Centered Security at Sage, headquartered in Newcastle. She is responsible for promoting and championing security within Sage.
Talk Synopsis: TBC

There is a capacity limit on the venue so ticket numbers for the event have been restricted so please cancel your ticket if you are unable to attend.

Live Stream Info: We're hoping to be able to live stream the event on our playeur channel