Those of you who’ve been reading this blog regularly know that I occasionally blog about security, and in fact, was the first worldwide to break the news about the Facebook “Error Check System” rogue application. That post alone got over 12,000 visits, got me interviewed in the Singapore Straits Times and still is one of the most popular posts on this site. Although there’s quite a fair bit of clubbing pictures here, I blog about security mainly because its relevant to everyone online - and it sucks to get hacked, seriously. Since I even Photoshop pimples off people who get featured here, it makes sense that I care for your computer security too, dear blog readers

With the DDOS of Twitter recently, rampant identity stealing scams on Twitter & Facebook, and all the fake Maybank phishing stuff I’ve been seeing over the past few years as well as some pretty visible blog hijacks last year, as well as spyware rackets where - it’s pretty obvious there are plenty of bad people out to get your data and do bad things with it. Whether its to deny access to data to their rightful owners, or steal it to repurpose it - essentially, taking what’s yours from you.

Welcome to teh internets. Haxors are here. Where are you?

With that in mind, if you’re a programmer, and IT specialist or a network security administrator, there’s
a conference called Hacker Halted Asia Pacific 2009 coming up this November that is going to be pretty useful for you. And even management types too (CEOs, CIOs, CTOs, etc) - you should know what your peons are talking about, don’t you think?

And yes, you can get your boss to pay for it. EC Council’s courses are accredited by the government
(PSMB/SBL), claimable and they work with the national Cybersecurity council.

CEH? Nothing to say ceh! about…

Those in the security field will probably know the terms “white hat” and “black hat”. And well, if you haven’t - remember Mad Magazine used to have this comic called “Spy vs Spy”? Basically, its something like that - the white coloured spy vs the black coloured spy continually come up with ways to outsmart and defeat each other.

And that’s kind of how security on the internet is like - if it can be created, it can be cracked. And if it can be cracked, it can be fixed. And the cycle repeats.

EC Council is the proud owner of the world renowned CEH - Certified Ethical Hacker certification. Basically someone with CEH certification knows all the things that the hackers on the dark side know, but he uses his powers for good - to defend networks and prevent intrusions. The power of the CEH certification will ensure you do not succumb to the lure of the dark side!

EC Council will make you more L33t

One of the highlights is the workshops, where you will get to “experience more than 300 new lab examples on application security and the latest hacking techniques”. It does sound pretty fun.

Click image for more details.

You’ll get to learn how to reverse engineer Java, Adobe Flash and Microsoft Silverlight to bypass restrictions, using cross site scripting to steal data (through secretly saving what your victim types) and execute code, as well as SQL, LDAP and Xpath injection. And, you get to learn how to steal passwords, hack Google (yes!), engage in social engineering (hint: sometimes the easiest way to get a password is to ask on the phone, pretending to be someone else), hacking USB devices and spying technologies.

This is serious stuff - as to catch hackers, you have to be able to think like one. As part of the workshop, you need to prepare a basic laptop - and the organizer made it clear that the machines should NOT contain any personal or company data.

You’ll leave the conference smarter than when you arrived.

With speakers that range from those in national security (from the Department of Homeland Security, USA), codebreakers who assisted in covert Middle East ops, to those who work against cyber-terrorism, those who deal with large corporate networks in the Fortune 100-500…

…and even a few that have to stay so low key because of the sensitive nature of what they do that, that no picture of them can be provided - you’re pretty much guaranteed to leave with a lot more knowledge about the threats that you could face as well as handling them.

So do check it out Hacker Halted 2009 at eccouncilapac.org.

It’ll be a valuable experience for you, and one that will make you, and your organization safer online.

PS: Pls don’t hack my blog k.