My First Tech Convention
This past weekend I went to Houston Tech Fest, and it was awesome! I didn’t see as many booths as I expected there but the ones that I did see were from some big names, like Amazon AWS, Microsoft and more. The representatives were all very friendly and I got to talk with some of the people in the industry and hear about their their experiences working in development. I also entered a raffle for a SNES Classic, which I didn’t win (Awwww), but I took away a lot of valuable knowledge from the experience.
Aside from meeting and shaking hands with the various company reps at the convention, the were also tons of interesting talks going on throughout the day. I went to four talks, and wanted to go to more but I had to leave around three-o-clock. Still, the presentations I got a chance to listen to were well worth it. One was all about cyber security and databases. Another imparted the importance of planning and best practices for launching a product. But the talk that stuck out the most was one on cyber security and hacking.
The presenter, Dennis Maldonado, founded his own “Red Vs. Blue” company and travels the globe contracting out to corporations all over the world. It’s his job to find chinks in their security armor and hack them! One time, he even hacked into a company’s private hanger bay and hijacked a private jet…well, he could have but he decided to leave a note instead!
I learned so much from his talk, but mostly I learned how insecure we actually are, and how susceptible we are to being hacked. All it takes is a little time on Google, and anyone can figure out hot to hack you. For example, Mr. Maldonado showed us how he could hack a security keypad like you would find at any business or apartment building, and do so in a mere 10 seconds. This is simply because he knows the factory password for re-programming these systems, and he can program in his own password undetected. Heck, he can even wipe the records. And the crazy thing is he said he’s never encountered a system that’s had its default password reconfigured. Kind of scary, right?
Anyway, below is a link to the presenter’s meetup group HAHA(Houston Area Hackers Associaton). His presentation was so interesting that I am going to go for sure, so check it out!
That’s it for today, I’ll see you guys next time!
