The summer is fast approaching and with it, everyone’s plans are coming together for Defcon 20.
( hopefully )Wait! What about the kids? Well… last year ushered in a great addition to the Defcon lineup, DEFCON Kids. This prompted Social-Engineer.Org to host the first ever Kid’s SE CTF. We set out to challenge our young “hackers” through a maze of puzzles, clues, and creative thinking.
Over the last year, social engineering has gotten a lot of press with all the attacks on companies around the globe. At Social-Engineer.org, our goal has always been to raise awareness about social engineering… especially in these turbulent times. Since Defcon 19 and the SECTF-2, we have worked with many of the previous year’s targets to give them tips on how they can remain secure from social engineers.
This year it is time to take the Social Engineering CTF to a new level. Over the last 12 months we have been discussing, in great detail, the difference between women and men in social engineering. One of our longest running polls actually featured this very topic, with women winning by a landslide.
While the women are ecstatic about that, the men are feeling a tad bit cheated. To settle this argument for once and for all, we are throwing an all-new type of Social Engineering CTF.
This year at Defcon 20 the Social Engineering CTF is titled “The Battle of the SExes”. (Hey, do you see what we did there? SE=Social Engineering…ummm, you get it right?)
The rules have been modified, the prizes are even better, and you have the chance to battle to prove the superiority of your gender – social engineer style.
Are you a skilled designer? Or a graphics enthusiast? Are you dying to show off your impressive design skills? Or are you someone who knows an awesome design when you see one? Here at SEORG we have neither design skills or money to pay a designer…. and by “too cheap to hire a designer”, what we really mean is that we are so confident in the communities’ creativity that this year we are holding our very first Design a T-Shirt contest! The idea is simple, submit your SEORG inspired design and let the community vote for the coolest, most creative design for this year’s special SEORG t-shirt being proudly worn at Defcon 20. It can be an image, a funny saying, a combination of both and what is the best part? Urbal has no say in the selection of your designs!
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The topic of women in the field of social engineering has been a topic of discussion for us here at SEORG for a long time. A few months ago we put up a poll asking the public to vote on this topic. The results were surprising, to say the least.
We broke the topic down to a few questions.
Each voter had a chance to defend their thoughts too.
As the final day of the historic, ground breaking course, Social Engineering for Penetration Testers, was upon us, the mood in the class was much different. What seemed like the final showdown in Fear Factor to a lot of the students was now looking like a morning jog. We watched with great happiness as the student shared their experiences from the evening before. We were pleased to see every team had accomplished their goals! What an amazing difference four days made! The last four days were a hardcore look at social psychology. After the students received the information and skills necessary to be a professional social engineer, it was time to put that skill to use. Day Five was all about the sexy side of social engineering. (more…)
