Cybersecurity Expert

Last night I was out talking security, drinking beer and eating curry with Samy Kamkar, following his presentation at an OWASP Chapter event in Leeds. Samy was responsible for writing and delivering the infamous Samy MySpace Worm in October 2005, which was one of the fastest growing malware infections to date. Samy Kamkar Samy delivered an excellent and fresh presentation at the OWASP Leeds Chapter meeting, highlighting several areas of new research and frankly new concern for us all. But I’ll save that for another blog posting once I’ve investigated it further, however you can read a little about one issue he discussed, which was highlighted in a recent BBC News report “ The Web attack knows where you live ” http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10850875 What I found particularly interesting about his presentation aside from the vulnerabilities and clever exploits, was you got to see how his mind ticks, his thought processes in finding and ex...

I just found out my name is on board the IKAROS spacecraft, which is currently solar sailing its way from Earth to Venus. Apparently this is a benefit of my membership of the Planetary Society – yes I do have other interests outside information security. IKAROS For more info visit http://planetary.org/programs/projects/solar_sailing http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/17/space-yacht-ikaros-japan-venus I don’t recall agreeing for my name to be sent into space, but I’m sure glad they did it, especially as this spacecraft may change course of interplanetary and interstellar exploration forever, plus the spacecraft could end up drifting in space for eternity, but I'll save further discussion on that for a different themed blog. So getting back to security, to be perfectly clear, an individual’s name on its own doesn’t require any protection and is not a requirement of legal acts such as the UK Data Protection Act. This is a common misnomer, it is only when you co...