PHDays Young School Finalists Decided

Got tired of waiting for new Brins and Kasperskys in Russia? Frankly speaking, we did. To find out the state of academic IT-security science in Russia, we announced a competition for young scientists who make researches in this field. The competition started a couple of months before the PHDays. This week, the finalists have been decided.

The program committee of the competition, which was composed of representatives of leading IT companies (Microsoft, Yandex, etc.), educational and scientific institutions (MSU, MEPI, SPIIRAS) and core publications (Hacker Magazine), considered 19 applications and selected 7 most interesting reports. The finals of PHDays Young School will host youngsters from educational institutions of Moscow, Krasnoyarsk, Novosibirsk, Saint Petersburg and Taganrog, who will compete for the main prize on May 31.

Registration for PHDays starts May 14, at midday

Please, note: the number of places is limited. Set your reminders for May's second Tuesday, 12:00 am. The faster you get registered, the higher are your chances to be among the invitees.

PHDays will give you an opportunity to hack anything you see, chat with Bruce Schneier, and wash down failures with free tequila. The registration procedure will be published soon. Stay tuned!

P.S. A note for late-risers: don't oversleep ;)

The Author of John the Ripper Will Speak at PHDays 2012

In 1996, Alexander Peslyak (aka Solar Designer) created a program called John the Ripper. This cross-platform utility designed to analyze password strength has become one of the top 10 popular software in the field of information security, while the program's site has been visited by 15 million people.

Besides, Alexander is a founder of the Openwall project and a leading developer of Openwall GNU/Linux (Owl) a highly secured operating system.

In 2009, Alexander was awarded with the Lifetime Achievement Award at Black Hat, a highly recognized conference on information security.

At PHDays 2012, the master of bruteforce will present his report titled Password security: past, present, future. In his presentation, he will discuss issues of password protection and speak of history and near-term prospects of the authentication technolog.

The Call for Papers Is Finished!

The applications for report presentation at PHDays 2012 have been successfully collected. In a week, we will post a draft program of presentations.

The best IS experts will join us to present very serious topics. At present, we are processing the last applications. The waiting is almost over!

New Reports at PHDays 2012: from Smartcard Vulnerabilities to Way of Hacking SAP

Why are the leading Russian companies losing each tenth ruble because of errors and thievery incidents in the SCADA environment? How many stadiums can be built for the money stolen from Russian remote banking systems? What are the real motives that stand behind the cruel war banks started to fight against hackers? We go on introducing reports by practicing experts who have announced their presentations for PHDays 2012.