SFISSA 2016 Hack the Flag/Chili Cookoff UPDATE

The South Florida ISSA Chapter is again our annual Hack the Flag/Chili Cookoff in 2016.  This is looking to be our biggest ever.

New location.

New stuff,

Want to be a part of it???  Register TODAY!!!  Go HERE to register.  Want to be a sponsor?? Let us know!!

Intel meets Arduino: Galileo, Edison, Curie

When I was getting into computers, we had a variety of companies making different microprocessors.  There was Intel, Zilog, Sun, IBM, Motorola, MOS Technology, National Semiconductor, TI, Acorn, HP, and several others.

It seemed that in the home market, at that time made up of Apple, Atari, and Commodore (and a few others), most chips were derived from the Motorola 6800.  (the 6502 was a derivative of the 6800).  So these were called the "6ers".  Their next generation systems were all based on the Motorola 68000 processor and successors.

In the business market, most were first based on the Zilog Z80 (the CP/M machines), later supplanted by the Intel 8088 and follow-on chips.  So these were called the "8ers".

Within the Unix workstation world, most started with the more powerful Motorola 68000 before going with a variety of RISC-based processors (Sun SPARC, HP PA-RISC, IBM PowerRISC, etc).

Eventually things shook out, and Intel and Intel-based processors came to dominate pretty much all of the desktop and laptop market and most of the server market (for Windows Servers and Linux Servers).  Intel has won out.  (please note this is a very simplified version of history)

Upcoming Security Events (I plan to be at) in 2016

Well, there are several upcoming events I hope to be involved within the coming months.  Several of these I hope to have further postings to promote them, but here is a quick run down.

20 Books: The CERT Guide to Insider Threats

This is part of a sub-series of postings based on the "20 Books Cybersecurity Professionals Should Read Now".

 The CERT Guide to Insider Threats: How to Prevent, Detect, and Respond to Information Technology Crimes (Theft, Sabotage, Fraud).  By Dawn Cappelli, Andrew Moore, Randall Trzeciak.  Addison-Wesley, 2012.

For those not aware, CERT is the Computer Emergency Response Team, a division with the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University.  Its a research group looking into various aspects of cybersecurity threats.  Often times it reports on new threats, alert organizations about them so they can take action.  It was formed by a directive from DARPA in the wake of the Morris worm, which formed the CERT Coordination Center.

C.H.I.P. unboxing

Hopefully most are aware of C.H.I.P., the interesting $9 micro computer from the Next Thing Company.  They launched this with a Kickstarter campaign and have been shipping them out this month.

I finally got mine and took some pictures.

The so-called InfoSec/Cybersecurity Skills Gap

Several groups are pushing the idea that there is a InfoSec/Cybersecurity "Skills Gap".  Basically the idea is that there are WAY more info sec positions then available people to fill them.

Sorry, but as an experienced infosec professional who has been looking and seen the market out there, and know of others who had have similar experiences, I'm not buying it.  MAYBE in some areas there are not enough people (DC area?).  MAYBE in certain skill areas (say pentesters or SOC folk) there are not enough people.  But I don't think that is a general issue across the board.

Sadly, these groups pushing this idea think that pumping out newbie infosec folks is the solution.  Really?  Companies are looking for EXPERIENCED people, not those with 'book learning'.

South Florida ISSA's 2016 Hack the Flag/Chili Cookoff event

For as long as I can remember, the South Florida ISSA Chapter has been hosting an annual Hack the Flag/Chili Cookoff.  We have a 'capture the flag' event, where teams work against each other to hack a system and collect 'flags'.  We've accompanied this with a chili cookoff (along with food and drinks), as not everyone does the CTF.  Most years we've had some kind of theme (russian, brazilian, asian, etc), and the last few we've had t-shirts.  Over the years we've been in a few different places (I can recall 5 different ones).  A couple of years ago we added a lockpick village as well.

Our event was bigger last year as we were celebrating our 15th Anniversary.  We had a bounce house and some other things.