On Saturday 28th September, Team Awen attended the first BSides Cymru!
BSides are Cyber Security conferences where experts from the industry share an insight into their respective research and work projects.
The day kicked off with an entertaining keynote introducing the age-old debate of Apple vs Android titled “Apple Apostles to Google Groupies: Why we need to stop security tribalism” by Chester Wisniewski and John Shier from Sophos.
John Shier and Chester Wiesniewski of Sophos alongside ‘Android Hippies’ vs ‘Our Dear Leader’
Some of our favourite talks included:
“How I breached Your Organisation” by Anthony Paimany of Blackberry Cylance, where we learnt the process and tools a Red Team uses to assess a company’s cyber-security. The mission presented involved ethical hacking processes to determine if it was possible to transfer $10,000 into a nominated bank account from within the organisation.
“Closed for Business: Taking Down Darknet Markets” by John Shier of Sophos which gave an insight into how law enforcement gathered data about illicit Darknet websites to seize the sites and track down their founders. This talk also explained how the closure of one Darknet market gave rise to the next dominant website.
‘How I breached your organisation’ by Anthony Paimany from Blackberry Cylance, and the aeroplane seating in the Tramshed Cinema
Other notable talks included presentations on the possibilities within quantum computing and cryptography, how to retrieve relevant data from car infotainment systems and innovations within cyber security analysis.
Team Awen also enjoyed visiting the ICS Village and meeting the team from the University of Bristol, and the sticker exchange where we picked up more adornments for our laptops!
Overall, we had a very enjoyable, informative day where we were able to network with many other companies and employees from the bustling South Wales Cyber Security scene!
Thank you to the organisers and volunteers behind BSides Cymru for a fantastically successful day, and we look forward to the next BSides Cymru (2020?!).