2025-02-22 - Intricacies of Misconfiguration Based Attacks

Abstract:
After working with many organizations and various selections of technology stacks, one thing becomes apparent: Configuring is hard. This is not just because server software is so complex but also because of different configuration formats and, at times, multiple areas where configurations sit. In this talk, we will touch on configuration files themselves and the most unintuitive areas or ways to (mis-)configure software we have seen. From that, we will demonstrate with a selected set of examples how easily exploitable seemingly minor issues in the configurations can be.

Bio:
Dr. Albert Heinle is driven by a mission to combat the global surge of data breaches and misconfigurations. Albert co-founded CoGuard in 2020 and serves as Chief Technology Officer. Prior to CoGuard, Albert held development positions at FLIR Systems, Inc., Aeryon Labs and Sortable. He completed a Ph.D. in Computer Science at the University of Waterloo in Symbolic Computation.

Host or Publisher Pacific Hackers Conference