VB2014 paper: OPSEC for security researchers

Posted by   Virus Bulletin on   Jan 19, 2015

Vicente Diaz teaches researchers the basics of OPSEC.

Since the close of the VB2014 conference in Seattle in October, we have been sharing VB2014 conference papers as well as video recordings of the presentations. Today, we have added 'OPSEC for security researchers' by Kaspersky researchers Vicente Diaz and Dani Creus.

As long as you perform your security research in the safe environment of a lab, staring at Wireshark logs or lines of IDA-generated code, you have little to worry about. But almost every security researcher leaves their lab - whether to write about their research, to access malicious resources or sometimes even in an attempt to infiltrate places where cybercriminals hang out.

In their paper, Vicente Diaz and Dani Creus provide a '101' on what is an increasingly important topic for security researchers: Operations Security, or OPSEC for short. Interestingly, this is an area in which security researchers, cybercriminals and intelligence agencies all face the same challenges, and can perhaps even learn from each other's mistakes.

There are many faces to OPSEC, but the golden rule is: if you don't really need to say something, then don't. This goes somewhat against the nature of many security researchers, who tend to like to brag about their discoveries. And then it's good to note the second golden rule: OPSEC doesn't work retrospectively.

OPSEC is hard, but Vicente finished his VB2014 presentation by saying that you don't need to be a fully fledged spy: some OPSEC is better than none. And, importantly, by performing OPSEC you help the community - as the Harvard student who used Tor to email a bomb threat anonymously, but was found out because he was the only one using Tor, can tell you, OPSEC works a lot better if you're not the only one using it.

You can read the paper here in HTML-format, or download it here as a PDF (no registration or subscription required). You can download the presentation slides here. We have also uploaded the presentation to our YouTube channel.



Posted on 19 January 2015 by Martijn Grooten
twitter.png
fb.png
linkedin.png
hackernews.png
reddit.png

 

Latest posts:

VBSpam tests to be executed under the AMTSO framework

VB is excited to announce that, starting from the Q3 test, all VBSpam tests of email security products will be executed under the AMTSO framework.

In memoriam: Prof. Ross Anderson

We were very sorry to learn of the passing of Professor Ross Anderson a few days ago.

In memoriam: Dr Alan Solomon

We were very sorry to learn of the passing of industry pioneer Dr Alan Solomon earlier this week.

New paper: Nexus Android banking botnet – compromising C&C panels and dissecting mobile AppInjects

In a new paper, researchers Aditya K Sood and Rohit Bansal provide details of a security vulnerability in the Nexus Android botnet C&C panel that was exploited in order to gather threat intelligence, and present a model of mobile AppInjects.

New paper: Collector-stealer: a Russian origin credential and information extractor

In a new paper, F5 researchers Aditya K Sood and Rohit Chaturvedi present a 360 analysis of Collector-stealer, a Russian-origin credential and information extractor.

We have placed cookies on your device in order to improve the functionality of this site, as outlined in our cookies policy. However, you may delete and block all cookies from this site and your use of the site will be unaffected. By continuing to browse this site, you are agreeing to Virus Bulletin's use of data as outlined in our privacy policy.