DEFCON XXIII, Aug 2015 "Applied Intelligence: Using Information That's Not There"
Organizations continue to unknowingly leak trade secrets on the Internet. To those in the know,
these leaks are a valuable source of competitive intelligence. This talk describes how the speaker
collects competitive intelligence for his own online retail business. Specifically, you learn how
he combines, trends, and analyzes information within specific contexts to manufacture useful data
that is real, but technically doesn't exist on it's own. For example, you will learn about the trade
secrets that are hidden within sequential numbers, how he uses collected intelligence to procure inventory,
and how and why he gauges the ongoing health of his industry and that of his competitors. And on a related
note, you'll also learn how the federal government nearly exposed an entire generation to identity fraud.
TALK: DEFCON XXII
DEFCON XXII, Aug 2014 "You're Leaking Trade Secrets"
Networks don't need to be hacked for information to be compromised. This is particularly true for organizations that are trying to keep trade
secrets. While we hear a lot about personal privacy, little is said in regard to organizational privacy. Organizations, in fact, leak information
at a much greater rate than individuals, and usually do so with little fanfare. There are greater consequences for organizations when information
is leaked because the secrets often fall into the hands of competitors. This talk uses a variety of real world examples to show how trade secrets
are leaked online, and how organizational privacy is compromised by seemingly innocent use of The Internet.
TALK: DEFCON XXI
DEFCON XXI, Aug 2012 "How my Botnet Purchased Millions of Dollars in Cars and Defeated the Russian Hackers"
This is the true story of a botnet that created a competitive advantage for a car
dealership. This dealership found a website that offered returned lease vehicles—great
cars for their inventory—but bad web design and heavy competition from other automotive
dealerships made the website useless. In response, a botnet was developed to make automotive
purchases with machine precision. With the bot, they could acquire any cars they wanted,
without interference from competing dealerships. During its one-year life, this botnet
autonomously acquired many millions of dollars in cars. Along the way, it successfully
adjusted to competition from a similar bot developed by Russian hackers while maintaining a
sufficiently low profile to "stay below the radar" of everyone involved.
TALK: DEFCON XVII, LAS VEGAS NV
DEFCON XVII, Las Vegas NV, Aug 2010 "Screen Scraper Tricks, Difficult Cases"
Screen scrapers and data mining bots often encounter problems when extracting data from modern websites. Obstacles like AJAX discourage many bot writers from completing screen scraping projects. The good news is that you can overcome most challenges if you learn a few tricks.
This session describes the (sometimes mind numbing) roadblocks that can come between you and your ability to apply a screen scraper to a website. You'll discover simple techniques for extracting data from websites that freely employ DHTML, AJAX, complex cookie management as well as other techniques. Additionally, you will also learn how "agencies" create large scale CAPTCHA solutions.
All the tools discussed in this talk are available for free, offer complete customization and run on multiple platforms.
Quoted from the DEFCON XV program
You can watch Michael Schrenk's DEFCON 17 talk here.
TALK: DEFCON XV, LAS VEGAS NV
DEFCON XV, Las Vegas NV, Aug 2007"The Executable Image Exploit"
The "Executable Image Exploit" lets you insert
a dynamic program into any community
website that allows references to off-domain
images; like MySpace or eBay. By uploading
the following line of HTML to a community
website, <img src="http://www.mydomain.
com/executable.jpg"> you can launch a
dynamic program that masquerades as a
static image and capable of reading and
writing cookies, analyzing referrer (and other
browser) variables and access databases. It is
even possible to create an image the causes a
browser to execute JavaScript.
Quote from the DEFCON XV program
This lecture described how to disguise computer programs as online images that may be used to gather specific metrics. I
also talked about how these methods were used to help a Private Investigator track an online stalker.
You can watch Michael Schrenk's DEFCON 15 talk here.
TALK: DEFCON X, LAS VEGAS NV
DEFCON X, Las Vegas NV, Aug 2002 "An Introduction to Writing Webbots and Spiders"
You can have a lot of fun with the Internet by ditching your
browser in favor of writing special purpose programs that look
for or do very specific things on the Internet. This session
will equip you with techniques to extract and interact with
data from web sites without a browser, parse and filter data,
follow links, deal with encryption and passwords, and
manage terabytes of information. You'll also learn why writing
these programs is a useful activity, and walk away with ideas
and abilities to write useful spiders or web agents of your own
design.
From the DEFCON X program
Follow the link for more information on Michael Schrenk's DEFCON 10 Talk.
Competitive
Intelligence
You have a responsibility to know as much as possible about your competition and markets.
Counter-
Intelligence
How much information are you giving your competition? Do you have Organizational Privacy policies?
Training &
Speaking
Well informed employees are your only true path to Organizational Privacy.
Online
Automation
Many online processes can be automated for efficiency and cost savings.
Copyright Michael Schrenk 2024, all rights reserved.
Screen scrapers and data mining bots often encounter problems when extracting data from modern websites. Obstacles like AJAX discourage many bot writers from completing screen scraping projects. The good news is that you can overcome most challenges if you learn a few tricks.
This session describes the (sometimes mind numbing) roadblocks that can come between you and your ability to apply a screen scraper to a website. You'll discover simple techniques for extracting data from websites that freely employ DHTML, AJAX, complex cookie management as well as other techniques. Additionally, you will also learn how "agencies" create large scale CAPTCHA solutions.
All the tools discussed in this talk are available for free, offer complete customization and run on multiple platforms.
