Kevin Mitnick: Program OutlinesThe Art of Deception: Are You In Danger of Being 'Conned'?

Join us to hear the world’s most famous former hacker share his perspective on the threat of “social engineering”-a highly effective type of attack that exploits the human element of corporate security.

While relatively unknown to the general public, the term “social engineering” is widely used within the computer security community to describe the techniques hackers use to deceive a trusted computer user within a company into revealing sensitive information, or trick an unsuspecting mark into performing actions that create a security hole.

Mitnick illustrates why a misplaced reliance on security technologies alone, such as firewalls, authentication devices, encryption, and intrusion detection systems are virtually ineffective against a motivated attacker using these techniques.

Although there are no reported statistics on the number of successful social engineering attacks, these ages-old techniques have been and continue to be extremely effective against unsuspecting targets, and pose the least risk and cost to your adversary.

In the corporate environment, a large number of unsuspecting victims never realize they have been manipulated. Will your employees be the next? Through concrete examples, Mitnick shares what your business can do to develop a creative and engaging security program that heightens awareness, motivates employees to change their attitudes, influences them to think defensively, and encourages the adoption of good security habits.

The Truth Behind the Myth of Kevin Mitnick

Most people’s concept of the ‘real’ Kevin Mitnick are derived from media-created myths. The media created a fantastic story and credited him with activities being carried out by other hackers, because if there was one villain, the story was much more interesting. The more interesting the story, the more newspapers and magazines it could sell.

Kevin Mitnick has been fascinated with technology since early childhood. His dabbling in electronics began with CB and ham radios. He eventually graduated to manipulating the phone system to play pranks on people, after the hobby of phone phreaking was introduced to him by some high school friends. Mitnick was intrigued by the phone systems, and had a desire to know everything about how they worked. When the phone systems converted over to computerized, switches, he graduated along with them, and approached computers with the same vigor with which he had mastered the phone system.

Kevin was never a malicious hacker and his hacking was never performed for personal gain or to cause damage to systems. His pursuit of hacking was purely to satisfy his intellectual curiosity, and, contrary to many innacurate reports, he never destroyed data or profited from his exploits.

Unfortunately, the government could not understand a hacker who was motivated by a personal quest for knowledge and a good challenge. Since computer crime was a relatively new challenge for the government back in the mid-1990’s, there were major efforts to obtain funding for these new crime-fighting programs. These programs couldn’t get the funding without the public’s support. This drive for funding, combined with the sensationalist media reports depicting Kevin as the Most Wanted Hacker in the World, was all the government needed to make Kevin Mitnick their prime target.

Kevin describes how he won the “scapegoat sweepstakes” based on the intense fear and propaganda generated by the American media and the U.S. government. You will hear first hand about what he did and why he did it, and his experiences at the hands of the United States criminal justice system.

Wireless Insecurity: Is Your Network Vulernable?

The use of wireless networking is becoming ubiquitous throughout the world. Countless businesses, government agencies, academic institutions, and teleworkers have deployed wireless networks in their computing environment. As a result, those organizations have opened up their networks to data thieves, vandals and hackers.

The real danger starts with the IT implementers who may not accurately assess the risks involved in the deployment of wireless technologies. Lulled into a false sense of security, many organizations believe the risks associated with their wireless connectivity is minimal based on the belief that these wireless signals only extend to the four walls of their organization or facility.

Join us to hear Kevin Mitnick discuss why this thinking is creating rampant insecurity in wireless networks, and learn just how easy it is for anyone with a computer and wireless card to breach these networks. During his presentation, Mr. Mitnick will demonstrate the tools and techniques that hackers are using everyday to compromise the security of numerous enterprises and consumers.

Mr. Mitnick will also share specific guidance you can immediately put to use to raise the bar of organizational awareness and mitigate the risk that your wireless network will be the next stepping stone into sensitive corporate data and computing resources.

The Art of Intrusion

To truly protect your organization’s valuable information, you must move beyond knowledge of the dangers and learn from real, “you are there” case studies shared by Mr. Mitnick himself. Kevin Mitnick, the world’s most famous (former) hacker, spent several years gleaning insights from the hacker community and gathering critical lessons-learned.

In this dynamic and riveting presentation, Mr. Mitnick shares how hackers ply their trade and
offers concrete and actionable guidance to help you strengthen your defenses.

He’ll reveal the hair-raising details of real-life computer break-ins, how the perpetrators hacked in and how they successfully covered their tracks. More importantly, Mr. Mitnick will share how you can prevent these same horror stories from being repeated in your organization. In addition, you will learn cost-effective counter measures and indispensable tips for bringing everyone in your organization on-board to offer maximum protection.