Please Join Us for Max Kersten at Wipermania

Event Timing: 3:00 – 5:00 p.m.,  Thursday, October 26, 2023

• Wipermania is sponsored by UAH Center for Cybersecurity Research and Education
• Hors d’oeuvres Served

Wipermania Abstract: In early 2022, Ukrainian companies were struck by multiple destructive wipers, attacking various companies in several sectors. This raised questions about the usage and impact of “digital weapons” within the security community, even though wipers themselves weren’t new. The infamous Shamoon wiper dates back more than a decade ago. How is it that wipers were as effective a decade ago, as they are in the present day? What has changed, and what remained the same? Based on the analysis of more than twenty recent wiper families, their trends, techniques, and overlap with other wipers will be discussed. Reusing code and techniques may link several wipers to the same actor, although the mere presence of such a link often leads to a hasty conclusion. This briefing is not the generic run-of-the-mill comparison of malware families, as it includes technical aspects of the analyzed wipers, thus focusing on both the high- and low-level aspects of the destructive software.

Speaker Biography: Max Kersten is a malware analyst, blogger, and speaker who aims to make malware analysis more approachable for those who are starting. Currently, Max works as a malware analyst at Trellix, where he analyses APT malware and creates open-source tooling to aid such research. Over the past few years, Max spoke at international conferences, such as Black Hat (Arsenal) (USA, EU, MEA, Asia), DEFCON, Botconf, Confidence-Conference, HackYeahPL, and HackFestCA. Additionally, he gave guest lectures and workshops for several universities and private entities. Max's malware analysis work has regularly appeared in the press.