hey everyone welcome back to Tech Talk I'm Julia Beauchamp and I am here with
csos JM pour up we are going to be talking about hacker summer camp that is
next week in Las Vegas so stick around
all right JM thank you so much for calling in from us when are you leaving
for hacker summer camp I'm off on Monday morning some is a
little bit late some people like to get there a day early and leave a day late
it's a lot of partying in Vegas I won't be doing the parties myself but a lot of
folks enjoy that it's summer camp there could be I don't know some ores or
something but let's talk first of all what is exactly hacker summer camp
what's going on sure for those those watching who are in the security
community next week are the three largest information security conferences
Def Con blackhat and besides Las Vegas and together they are a week of hacker
and information security madness in a good way in a good way and they'll be
really packing them in in Vegas right I think you mentioned what 42,000 people
attendees I I don't have a precise number to give you but we're talking
between thirty and fifty thousand people I would need to give you a precise
figure but there's a lot of people in Vegas during Echo summer camp great so
what do we really have to look out for I mean obviously at these conferences
there's just going to be a lot of talks and I know that sort of a fixture of
some of the conference's can be sort of these like hacking villages so what are
we really looking out for at these three conferences George so each has their own
character Def Con is the original hacker it calls itself a hacker conference and
it's dedicated to to all things hacker the culture breaking things you know the
old hacker model proof of concept or get out you know and proving that something
is broken has great value and has been very successful in drawing attention to
things that are broken and in need of fixing because often times software
makers or device vendors don't wish to admit something is broken because it
makes them look bad as from a marketing point of view
and that has been a very successful strategy for hackers and arguably
society as a whole for decades black hat is the is the next conference that
emerged after DEFCON black net is the enterprise security conference which is
which dovetails a lot CSO on lines B we recover the enterprise
security market for businesses who want to protect their customers data protect
their their own data and then of course besides Las Vegas which is the smallest
of the three and perhaps the most policy focused and so what are we looking
forward to this year I'm seeing a trend a transition from the let's prove things
are broken to well okay everything is broken I mean when was the last day to
breach story you read yesterday two days ago right and we're gonna read other one
tomorrow right yeah you know it's it was boring you
know oh you have a data breach with only ten thousand people affected that's not
news and everything is broken everything is breached you know the old
silly joke has two kinds of companies in the world those that know they've been
breached and those that don't know so we're in the situation where additional
security research that proves things are broken and new and startling and
horrible ways is a contribution to the community to society but now we're
getting to a point where like now what you know is that making things better
are we seeing stronger security controls and software projects from the
enterprise you know Capital One was breached by a single lone disgruntled
ex-employee of AWS just last week things are not getting better III don't think
anyone would realistically say things are improving
yeah yeah I think it is going to be sort of interesting to see what these
solutions are I mean we do know that I mean as just an individual as a consumer
as a customer and where I mean I can't even begin to imagine how
many institutions have my data I mean Capital One is an obvious one
because it's a bank obviously my bank has my information but there's only so
much as an individual you can do to protect your data you know you cannot
put your social security number on crazy websites but you need that when you're
applying for a credit card so then you're putting your trust in other in
these big institutions hands and I think it would be interesting to see what some
of these solutions and preventative measures are going to be and I think
that's interesting to see that sort of shift at the conferences from moving
towards let's break this voting machine or let's break into the server and get
all hundred million peoples in data to let's actually fix the problem yeah you
know I mean there's still value for instance in hacking voting machines
demonstrating that they are in fact vulnerable but you know as you say the
individual has very very little control over their ability to defend themselves
it's the public health metaphor has become popular to discuss these kinds of
issues like maybe you know you have good sanitary practices and think you're
going to avoid Colorado to give a yucky example but if everybody around you
practices poor sanitation you remain vulnerable so it becomes a public health
crisis almost how do we solve the problem at scale for the benefit of
everybody and that's the point where government and regulators and our
elected representatives and you know leaders who need to be having this
conversation you need to step forward and and make some hard decisions and I
do know that in your article you did a bit of a preview article about this and
we will link that below so our viewers can also check out that article if
they're going to be attending one of these conferences sort of James top talk
picks but I know that when you mentioned in some of these talks is that there's
it really seems like there is sort of a focus on policy making which is very
interesting I think it's I think it would probably
be encouraging to have some policy regulations to ensure that me as a
consumer my data and all of my information is still being protected
because there's these policies that companies have to follow in place yes I
think the the growing conversation we're seeing between technologists and policy
makers is very encouraging and hopefully not too little too late because at the
end of the day you know tech and government have to work together for
everyone's benefit not just their own and the more that that you know people
in those two spheres are often isolated from the other party and the more we see
the two encouraged to have a dialogue I think the more progress with lenses see
and it won't happen in one year it may not happen in ten years but I think
we're being slowly beginning to see this change take place and it's a change that
we should celebrate and encourage absolutely and I think it's also really
interesting to see sort of how some of these chats and talks that are going on
at these security conferences which at first glance can seem very niche I mean
I'm not a hacker I'm not a CSO but it's encouraging to see that there is some
broader appeal for everyone these talks that are happening our changes that
really can help everyone not just the CSO of Amazon yeah and the CEO of Amazon
makes affect everybody I mean even if you're not an Amazon customer you're
probably have your data in an enterprise's database that's being
stored on Amazon Web Services right so the future of Amazon affects all of us
right now for better or for worse and something just before I let you go
something that you mentioned when we were just chatting about this before we
started filming is that you really have seen sort of a positive trend at these
sort of security conferences in Vegas and do you think that's because of the
suit new sort of shift towards preventing
of measures will see makers are beginning to realize that if they want
to you know there are people in Congress who actually care I won't talk about the
rest but there are good people in Congress who actually wanted to the
right thing who actually wanted to to make things better and I've personally
spoken to regulators who want to do the right thing and finding ways to to bring
regulators and government officials and policy makers and elected
representatives and hackers and security researchers and so forth all to get in
the same room to say we have some problems but we all are in the same boat
together this is all of us now it's not just you against me this is all of us
and we are going to sink or swim together and we need to work together
for that end goal and these kinds of conversations I hope will begin to move
the needle on seeing positive changes for the future of our society great I
think I'm really looking forward to seeing what sort of stuff you'll be
brain while you're there can we look out for your articles during next week
absolutely we will see what happens before I know what I'm going to write
about that's true I guess you know you can't predict it yet thanks so much Jim
don't pleasure Julia thank you so much for having me thank you so much for
watching this episode of tech talk if you like this video be sure to give it a
thumbs up and subscribe to our channel we will have James preview article
linked below and we'll also be sure to link the tech V depa sewed that I did
about the capital one breach which we briefly mentioned here thank you so much
for watching again and we'll see you next time