What to Expect at DEFCON 2016

History of DEFCON

There is a rich history of DEFCON, which dates back over two decades of conferences. This will be 24th DEFCON and, with over 20,000 attendees expected for this year, it has exploded from its humble beginnings from way back in 1993. The very first DEFCON was actually a going away party thrown in Vegas by Jeff Moss. However, the friend he was throwing it for had left early, so instead Jeff decided to open the invitation up to his friends and roughly 100 people attended.  

From there, DEFCON expanded to the size that it is today, attracting hackers, educators, federal agents, geeks, and people with an interest in computers. The name DEFCON comes from the military term DEFCON, which is short for “Defense Readiness Condition” and was made popular by the movie War Games (I highly recommend it if you haven't seen it before).

Now DEFCON boasts a crazy amount of people all from completely different backgrounds, covering an even larger spread of topics and events. It’s unique from many other conferences in that there is no way to pre-register for the conference—you have to just bring cash to attend. This is another huge theme of DEFCON and that is people ditch their credit cards, cell phones, and most other electronics before walking into the conference.

In fact, most attendees (myself included) use ‘burner’ or disposable phones at the conference as many of the presentations are about hacking cell phone traffic and cell phones. This way if your phone gets hacked, then you don’t have to worry about anything!

What Happens at DEFCON?

The conference covers hacking of all kinds—from cars to planes to traditional computers to social engineering, internet of things, and even medical equipment. Originally the conference only has presentations where hackers would speak about different techniques, targets, and skills. Now there are hacking competitions, workshops, and villages for specific skill sets.

The workshops are a great place for aspiring hackers to hone their skills and get hands on with different types of hacking both from an offensive and defensive role.

Can Attendees Get in Trouble?

Whenever I talk about a hacker conference, I’m confronted with the same question over and over: “If everyone knows about this hacking conference, how are all of the hackers not rounded up and arrested right then and there?” Well that’s because this conference brings awareness to security issues, and even has many government officials, as well as federal agents in attendance to learn too.

It’s important to note that not all hackers wear black hoodies, live in basements, and commit cyber-crime. Hackers come in all forms but there are most definitely hackers that find problems and report them before bad hackers have a time to exploit them.

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What Will DEFCON 2016 Be Like?

So now that the groundwork is set, let’s talk about what to expect from this year’s conference. Luckily for me, all of the presentation topics have been posted online ahead of time, which is a great way to see the trends.

First and foremost is mobile hacking. There are a number of presentations that attack mobile platforms such as tablets and phones in every conceivable way from hacking apps to listening to phone calls to messing with the cell phone towers themselves. Given how many people use mobile devices these days, it is absolutely no surprise that they are such prime targets.

The next topic I see gaining a ton of traction is the hacking of bio tracking devices and medical equipment. With the explosion of fitness tracking apps and devices out there, it is also no surprise that these devices are targets. Much of the issue has to do with how these devices communicate with the internet. There are more than a few presentations this year that will cover how easily data from these devices is to collect and what the implications are. For example, many people think, "What do I care if someone knows how many steps I walked?" However, you probably would care if they knew where you walked and when!

Many people think, "What do I care if someone knows how many steps I walked?" However, you probably would care if they knew where you walked and when!

It gets even scarier with new waves of medical equipment that are also internet connected. Now devices such as pace makers and insulin pumps are connected to the internet via Bluetooth, much like other fitness trackers. The implications for this are much larger than just someone watching you walk. One vulnerability in that a critical medical device could be the difference between life and death. After all, if your computer gets ransomware you can recover from a backup, but what do you do if your pacemaker gets a virus? Do you pay the ransom then? It’s crucial that questions like these are being asked.

I’ve done a full episode about car hacking in the past, so I won’t be covering that again, but you can believe it that this year car hacking will be back. My hope is that the car companies highlighted this year will be different from last year to bring more awareness.

The theme of this year’s conference is “Rise of the Machines,” which is really interesting because the main event this year will actually involve a computer hacking other computers. DARPA, or Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, is having their computer compete against human hackers. This will be the first time anything like this has happened at DEFCON and the stakes are high seeing as the winner will take home over $2 million dollars!

If you happen to be at DEFCON this year, I’d love to meet up! Feel free to shoot me an email if you are. One last thing, I’ll be presenting on how to detect and locate rogue cell towers!

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Until next time, I’m the Tech Talker, keeping technology simple!

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