What you might have missed at Black Hat and Def Con 2022
Hackers, researchers, cybersecurity companies and government officials descended on Las Vegas last week for Black Hat and Def Con, a cybersecurity double-bill that’s collectively referred to as “hacker summer camp.”
This year’s cyber gathering was particularly exciting: Not only did it mark Black Hat’s 25th anniversary, but also the first time since the start of the pandemic that attendees have fully returned to the carpeted hallways of the popular security conferences. This meant that amid the mask confusion and subsequent influx of positive tests, there was a lot for the hacking community to catch up on.
We’ve rounded up some of the best announcements from the two shows.
Starlink hacked with $25 homemade modchip
A cybersecurity researcher revealed it’s possible to hack into Starlink terminals using a $25 device. Belgian security researcher Lennert Wouters took to the stage at Black Hat on Thursday to showcase how he was able to hack StarLink’s user terminals — referred to as “Dishy McFlatface” by Elon Musk’s SpaceX employees — using a homemade circuit board, or “modchip.” This gadget permits a fault injection attack that bypasses Starlink’s security system and allows access to control functions that Starlink had intended to keep locked down. Wouters revealed the vulnerability to SpaceX last year, earning his place in the company’s bug bounty hall of fame. Following his talk, SpaceX responded with a six-page paper explaining how it secures its systems along with a firmware update that “makes the attack harder, but not impossible, to execute.”
Source: Tech Crunch