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“Fool Us!”, or is it “Us Fools!”? … 11 “Fools” years later…

20:00 - 20:30 UTC Thu 7 Oct 2021
Righard Zwienenberg (ESET) & Eddy Willems (G DATA)
Eleven years ago, in our presentation “Attacks from the inside…” at the Virus Bulletin 2010 Conference in Vancouver, we outlined and provided examples of a variety of possible scenarios for internal attacks. We concluded with a top nine problems of 'in-the-cloud services'. 11 years later, we were both surprised to find that our predictions and warnings seem to have been completely ignored, with all of them having materialized.

In this presentation, Eddy and Righard will “relive” their 2010 presentation, while illustrating with recent examples that their message and warnings are as current and relevant now as they were then. Nothing has changed, except that internal attacks now also come from the outside!

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic the corporate world has changed, with “home working” meaning that inside and outside have become mixed. In a recent incident, eight of the top nine problems we identified 11 years ago were present, and all were foolishly ignored by professionals working from home. We considered naming this presentation “Attacks from the inside, by the outside…”, but as the lessons learned and advice given in 2010 by “Us Fools!” seem to to have been ignored, must we assume that no one cares and really thinks “Fool Us!”?

We genuinely hope that, this time, the message we bring, combined with recent real-life examples, is not in vain…

Got a question about this presentation? During the live broadcast post your question in the #q-and-a channel on Discord or, to get in touch with the speakers later, contact Righard by email: [email protected], Keybase: righardzw or Twitter: @RighardZw, and Eddy by email: [email protected], Twitter: @eddywillems or via his LinkedIn profile.
Righard Zwienenberg
ESET

Righard Zwienenberg started dealing with computer viruses in 1988 after encountering the first virus problems. His interest thus kindled he has studied virus behaviour and presented solutions and detection schemes ever since. Starting as an independent consultant, later as R&D Manager at CSE Ltd, as a researcher for ThunderBYTE, as Chief Research Officer at Norman, and currently as Senior Research Fellow at ESET. Over the years he has served in many extra roles in different industry organizations. Currently he is still serving on the board of AVAR, on the Technical Overview Board of the WildList and as the Vice Chair of the Executive Committee of IEEE ICSG. In 2018, Zwienenberg joined the Europol European Cyber Crime Center (EC3) Advisory Group as an ESET representative. Zwienenberg has been a member of CARO since late 1991. He is a frequent speaker at conferences – among these Virus Bulletin, EICAR, AVAR, RSA, InfoSec, SANS, CFET, ISOI, SANS Security Summits, IP Expo, Government Symposia, SCADA seminars - and general security seminars.

Eddy Willems
G DATA

Eddy Willems is a cybersecurity expert from Belgium. Currently he is a board member of three security industry organizations (EICAR, LSEC, AVAR), Global Security Officer and the resident Security Evangelist at G DATA CyberDefense AG. He studied computer sciences at IHB and VUB and started working as a systems analyst in 1984. He became a founding member of EICAR, one of Europe’s first IT security organizations, in 1991. Eddy is regularly quoted by national and international broadcast media. He published his first Dutch book ‘Cybergevaar’ in 2013, followed by an updated and expanded German and English translation, ‘Cyberdanger’, in 2019. He is also co-author of the Dutch SF cyberthriller ‘Het Virus’, published in 2020. Eddy is a known inspiring speaker and gives lectures and presentations worldwide for very diverse audiences from children to experts.