Computer Science student and alumna present at information security conference

Two Jumbos will attend the annual BSides Las Vegas conference on August 6^th and 7^th to present their research on information security. The two-day conference is held to engage the industry and community with the latest developments in the field.

Winnona DeSombre, E18, will present “Bestsellers in the Underground Economy – Measuring Malware Popularity by Form.” DeSombre’s presentation will discuss popular malware and tools used among underground criminal forums based on prevalence in forum advertisements. She will investigate how these tools differ between forums and why these differences matter.

Jared Chandler, Ph.D. candidate in computer science, will present “So you think you can CHMOD,” a discussion of file permissions errors that often reveal sensitive information such as private education, medical, and defense data. Chandler will share XRAY, a system developed to find errors in systems with Unix style file permissions.

BSides Las Vegas is a source of education, communication, and collaboration. The presentations at the conference are given in the spirit of peer review for the sharing of knowledge among all specialties in the field of information security.