Archive for December 19, 2017

The 8th Edition Of Hack In Paris Announces Their Training Schedule

Posted in Commentary with tags on December 19, 2017 by itnerd

After the success of the latest edition with more than 650 attendees, this 5-day corporate event will be held for the eighth time in France, at the Maison de la Chimie, in the heart of the 7th district of Paris. An event for CISOs, CIOs, consultants, students and passionate about IT security field.

Once again they have selected the best speakers and trainers to offer a full and varied program. During a 1, 2 or 3-days training, you will learn and practice in a dedicated environment and supervised by professionals of hacking and security.

June 25th – 27th 2018: Training

Hack in Paris offers 18 training classes from 1 to 3 days led by international experts:

TRAINING 1 : Bug Hunting Millionaire: Mastering Web Attacks with Full-Stack Exploitation with Dawid Czagan
TRAINING 2 : Windows Post-Exploitation: Subverting the Core with Ruben Boonen
TRAINING 3 : Mobile App Attack with Sneha Rajguru
TRAINING 4 : Corelan Live – Bootcamp with Peter Van Eeckhoutte
TRAINING 5 : Practical IoT Hacking with Aseem Jakhar
TRAINING 6 : “Smart lockpicking” – hands on exploiting flaws in IoT devices based on electronic locks and access control systems with Slawomir Jasek
TRAINING 7 : Analogue network security architecture & design with Winn Schwartau & Mark Carney
TRAINING 8 : Hacking and Securing Windows Infrastructure with Paula Januszkiewicz
TRAINING 9 : Pentesting the Modern Application Stack with Francis Alexander
TRAINING 10 : Practical Industrial Control System (ICS) Hacking with Arun Mane
TRAINING 11 : Hacking IPv6 Networks v4.0 with Fernando Gont
TRAINING 12 : Pentesting Industrial Control Systems with Arnaud Soullie
TRAINING 13 : Reverse Code Engineering in Win32 apps: protecting yourself in-the-wild with Rodríguez Ricardo J
TRAINING 14 : Designing Linux Rootkits with Himanshu Khokhar
TRAINING 15 : Infrastructure Security Assessment with Omair
TRAINING 16 : Low-Level Hardware Penetration Testing with Henrik Ferdinand Noelscher and Javier Vazquez
TRAINING 17 : Smashing the SSL/TLS protocol with practical crypto attacks with Marco Ortisi
TRAINING 18 : Certified Chief Information Security Officer (CCISO) – online soon

Various topics will also be discussed in depth from a technical perspective. Additional details will be announced mid-February.

For more information visit https://hackinparis.com.

 

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Coming Next Week: The 2017 IT Nerd Awards

Posted in Commentary on December 19, 2017 by itnerd

It’s that time of year where I hand out the IT Nerd Awards to the products that I’ve reviewed over the last year that have caught my eye. This is the fourth year that I am handing these out and just like last year, I’ll have four categories that I will be handing out awards in:

  • The Best Smartphone Of 2017
  • The Best Accessory Of 2017
  • The Best Car Of 2017
  • The Best SUV/Van Of 2017

To be considered for an award, the product has to have been reviewed by me in 2017. There also has to be more than one review done by me in a given category.

I will start handing out awards next week starting with the best smarphone which will be online at 9AM EST on both the blog and Twitter. Every other award will be announced at the same time for the rest of the week. Stay tuned to see who won!

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Why Are Canadians Going Nuts Over 10GB Data Plans For $60 A Month?

Posted in Commentary with tags , on December 19, 2017 by itnerd

Over the last few days, Canadian cell phone users have been overwheming phone lines and filling the retail stores of cell phone carriers in Canada to score a 10GB data plans for $60 a month. The response to this plan has been off the charts. I even got involved in letting people know about this:

But the question is why is the response to this so huge? The reason is twofold.

First, Canadian telcos charge Canadians the highest prices for cell phone service on planet Earth as evidenced by this study [Warning: PDF]. While there have been declines in pricing for plans such as low-use mobile plans,  they are still higher than most places on the planet. This of course is not new as Canadians have known that for a while now. But it makes a plan like this $60 a month for 10GB of data appealing to consumers as it’s way better than what most Canadians pay for their cell service. It also highlights that Canadian telcos need to do a much better job in terms of providing value for money as clearly this is not happening.

Another factor is the fact that the CRTC forced teclos to unlock phones for free starting December 1st. So, if you ignore the fact that Canadian telcos won’t be making tons of cash from unlocking phones, and from roaming charges when customers travel overseas, it opens up the possibility that a customer will simply dump one telco for another because with an unlocked phone, they can move at any time. Thus this sort of plan is a defensive move to try and retain customers.

So, which one of these is responsible for the sort of response that we’ve been seeing over the last few days? I think it’s a bit of both actually. Regardless, my advice is that if you’re a cell phone user in Canada, I suggest you take advantage of this offer today as it will send a clear message that Canadians are not happy about what they pay for cell service and are willing to do something about it. Thus telcos have to step up their game if they want to retain customers.

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