Up Close at Defcon 30 in Las Vegas

pcmag.com:

For the first time in two years, hackers and security professionals reconvened at two of their most significant yearly gatherings, Defcon and Black Hat.

For the uninitiated, there are two simultaneous Las Vegas shows that cater, respectively, to hackers (Defcon) and those in the business of security (Black Hat, which PCMag covered extensively this year). There’s overlap, of course, but Defcon is widely viewed as the friendlier, less business-focused, and more colorful of the two. Defcon has more focus on contests and hacking demonstrations accessible to anyone; Black Hat leans toward the research produced by the marquee cyber industry names.  

Practitioners widely praise both events for the high-quality networking. Many in the field find this is the only way to get unbiased reviews from other practitioners of common security tools. There’s a dearth of information on how these products fare in the real world, and these events help fill in the gaps.  

With that in mind, a team of practitioners from PCMag parent company Ziff Davis headed to Defcon this year, our first widely attended event since COVID restrictions eased. The 2022 event was a first for analysts Guler Kalkan and Tariq Holland, and the sixth for Scott Reese, a security operations manager. 

A recurring theme at the 2022 event, Reese said, is tools and techniques to prevent insider threats and help aid internal investigators. With resources constrained within the cybersecurity industry generally, conversations have focused on finding ways to used skilled investigators for prevention rather than only after an incident, he said.

Reese also cited a special presentation on Windows vulnerabilities by researcher Tomer Bar(Opens in a new window) of SafeBreach labs. The