In the security community, the beginning of the summer is the time of the year when most conferences are held.  In the last couple of days, there has been the CARO workshop, the AMTSO meeting and the EICAR conference.  Numerous ESET employees have attended each of these gatherings.  In my opinion, the best event so far has received less media attention, and it is the Confidence conference.

Confidence was held last week in the beautiful city of Krakow.  It was packed with interesting challenges like assessing the security of a web application, a robot building competition, a capture de flag contest, and a specially crafted “crackme” from ESET’s research team in Poland.  The talks touched numerous topics including lock picking, penetration testing, anonymity and malware.  The keynote by Bruce Schneier was very well delivered and informative while Jacob Applebaum’s presentation on Tor, its applications and limitations gave a good overview of this great project.

Not only were the talks and workshops innovative, the venue was also great.  The event was held in a cinema, meaning a great sound system and good seats.  Confidence attracted attendees from all over Europe and beyond.  The two day event was a great opportunity to meet skilled researchers, thanks to the organizers!

Pierre-Marc Bureau
Researcher