Ex-CIA director will speak at Black Hat

FORMER US CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY director and onetime longest serving head of the US National Security Agency Michael Hayden will be a keynote speaker at the Black Hat 2010 insecurity conference that kicks off today.

Hackers, security researchers, IT administrators and computer crime experts are meeting in Las Vegas this week for what is the world's biggest hacking convention. The week actually sees three conferences devoted to computer security. The Black Hat briefings are presented by industry professionals and researchers discussing major security issues of the day. Running concurrently is the Bsides conference, which largely consists of speakers rejected by Black Hat.

The other big name in a US federal government official attending is Jane Holl Lute, deputy secretary of Homeland Security. It's all a far cry from the first years of the Black Hat conference where 'spot the Fed' was a popular game among attendees.

Hot topics at the show will be a demonstration of ATM hacking that was due to be given last year but was stopped after a legal challenge.

Other expected highlights include a live demonstration of cracking a GSM phone conversation, more details on the growth of malware aimed at industrial systems and a possible push for an entirely new way of protecting the Internet's DNS architecture.

Finally at the end of the week the Defcon convention will see hackers and assorted computer specialists learning to hack in hardcore workshops, with a big party at the end of the week. µ