Last week I had the opportunity to attend Black Hat USA 2019. I was familiar with Black Hat before last week, however, I did not know much about it other than it was a hacker conference in Las Vegas and that, when it happened, there were usually a lot of hacking incidents in and around the Strip. So when I found out that I would be attending Black Hat 2019, I was excited and intrigued by the opportunity, but also a little apprehensive. What was I getting myself into? Am I going to get hacked? Should I bring my phone? Do I leave it powered off? Am I going to understand anything they talk about?
Before going I decided to address my concerns about attending by researching various tips and tricks. I read a lot of pieces suggesting that you get a burner phone and leave all of your personal electronics at home. Others suggested that you leave your devices in airplane mode unless absolutely necessary to connect. Ultimately, I ended up deciding that the safest thing for me would be to leave my phone powered off at home and put my watch in airplane mode. And so that I would not be left without a connection to the outside world, I would help test my firm’s cybersecurity by bringing my work phone. I wouldn’t connect to any public wifi and I would turn off bluetooth, but I would still use the phone to access the Black Hat app and to check Twitter throughout the day. Only time will tell if I got hacked, but once I was there I was not quite as worried. I saw numerous people exhibiting much riskier behavior than i was doing. And as far as I can tell, I survived unscathed. I think that the burner option is a little much for most people, but it may appropriate for your situation. You will have to make that decision.
My next few posts will be about the briefings I attended and what I learned at Black Hat. Stay tuned!