'Hackers who broke Windows' coming to Malaysia

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

http://star-techcentral.com/tech/story.asp?file=/2003/8/20/technology/6086284&sec=technology

By JULIAN MATTHEWS 
August 20, 2003

PETALING JAYA: Polish celebrity hackers The Last Stage of Delirium 
(LSD) Research Group will be coming to Malaysia to attend the 
country's first major hackers' conference in December. 

"The event seems to be very promising. We are glad to accept the 
invitation," confirmed the group's spokesman Tomasz Ostwald in an 
e-mail response. 

The three-day conference is being hosted by Hack In The Box (M) Sdn 
Bhd, the company that runs a popular security site of the same name at 
www.hackinthebox.org. 

"This is a coup for the local network security community," said 
conference organiser Dhillon Andrew Kannabhiran. "We are very proud 
that LSD Research has consented to our invitation. It will raise 
awareness of the level of technical expertise available in Malaysia on 
global security issues." 

LSD Research (http://lsd-pl.net) has been labelled the "hackers who 
broke Windows." The four-man group who prefer to be called "security 
engineers" have uncovered and documented vulnerabilities in nearly 
every version of Microsoft's Windows operating system. 

The "Blaster" worm, which infected hundred of thousands of computers 
worldwide and sent network administrators scrambling to download the 
patch recently, exploited a critical flaw first discovered by the 
group in June this year. 

Even Microsoft, not known to be appreciative of the hacking community, 
has thanked and acknowledged the group for its efforts. 

The discovery of the "DCOM RPC" flaw was a source of embarrassment to 
the Redmond, Washington-based software giant as it affected its most 
popular offerings including the Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows 
XP and its much touted "most secure ever" server, Windows Server 2003. 

All four founder members of LSD Research -- Michal Chmielewski, 
Sergiusz Fonrobert, Adam Gowdiak and Ostwald -- are expected to attend 
the Hack In The Box conference set for Dec 12-14 at the Mid Valley 
Exhibition Centre and Cititel Hotel in Kuala Lumpur. 

Ostwald said it will be the group's first trip to Malaysia. "We have 
heard it is a very nice place and will be glad to visit and hope to 
stay for a week after the conference and take in the sights." 

He added that the group was aware of the strong interest in security 
issues among Malaysians and hoped to take some "interesting meetings" 
during the conference. 

"We have also heard a little about Malaysia's Multimedia Super 
Corridor and of course we would like to see the place," said Ostwald. 

LSD Research was first formed in 1996 by the four Master's in Computer 
Science graduates from Poznan University of Technology in western 
Poland. 

In 2001, the group gained notoriety for winning £35,000 (RM217,000) in 
a hacking challenge run by Argus System Group Inc on its flagship 
security product PitBull. 

LSD Research had cleverly exploited a kernel level vulnerability in 
the base Solaris x86 operating system that was running on the system 
that Argus had deployed for the challenge. 

Kannabhiran of Hack In The Box said the three-day conference will 
include an expo, a live "capture the flag" hacking competition, and 
presentations from various other security experts. 

Apart from sharing of network security information, the conference 
promises "a look at several new attack methods that have not been seen 
or discussed in public before." 

The conference will be limited to 700 participants and about 1,000 
visitors are expected daily for the expo. 

More details available at http://conference.hackinthebox.org, or 
e-mail dhillon () hackinthebox org. 



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