[May 31, 2011 at around 6:30PM]
In just a short notice, Ms. T, Mr. S and I finally met at Bo’s Coffee Shop at Raintree Mall (Cebu City). We had a lengthy discussion on how we can extend support to ROOTCON to promote “Security Awareness”.
We are planning of organizing another informal small gathering sometime on July 2011. The sponsor for the food and venue will be taken care of by Ms. T.
Semprix is also planning to fly from Manila to Cebu and join the gathering to introduce ROOTCON 101. Please be reminded that ROOTCON is not an underground movement but an event and a community by itself to share ideas and proof of concept about your research.
In the past, Ms. T attended a lot of international security conferences from abroad and she gave us tips on how to make Philippines in the spotlight as another destination for Information Security Conference. She also mentioned that India has a good standing on this kind of event and widely supported by different companies.
Her interest began when she was a victim of identify thief in the US using her credit card. Her profession is more on headhunting servicing corporate clients in the states.
While busy sipping our coffee, Mr. S showed to us how to spoof and clone a MAC address using a device and gain FULL Internet access (4G) on a wireless connection of a Mobile / Telephone Company. These are IP Addresses that can be spoofed in Cebu and Manila randomly. For privacy, I won’t mention the name of the company here.
Amazed at what I saw, I asked Mr. S – “You can watch YouTube using this connection with no buffering at all?
“Yes”, said Mr. S.
Take note, we did not use the password protected WiFi of the said coffee shop but use the connection presented by Mr. S.
Sniff, Sniff, Sniff at the Coffee Shop
Moving forward, at the back of my head I asked myself, “Is it safe to use a WiFi connection inside the coffee shop? After gaining access on their WiFi, will the attacker be able to sniff around and capture our username and password?”
That question lingers at the back of my head. I’m curious to try it out myself and blog about it next time.
We parted our ways at around 10PM and bid goodbye.
P.S.
If you have projects or research concerning security, please contact us and we will be glad to feature it here. Remember, our objective is to promote “Security Awareness”.
You don’t know if you will be the next victim like what I heard and read. Installing Antivirus in your system is not always a guarantee for security.
Join us and participate ROOTCON! For more info email us at info[at]rootcon[dot]org.
We hope to see you during the CON!
Other blogs you might be interested to read:
GMA Website and Twitter ~ Pawned
About the Contributor:
ROOTCON is managed by like minded InfoSec professionals across the Philippines.
All rights reserved. Designated trademarks, brands and articles are the property of their respective owners.