The Business of Hacking

Some consider Jeff Moss, DEFCON's founder, the Tiger Woods of hackers. Moss is in his 30s, is married, and calls Seattle home. In addition to DEFCON, Moss created and moderates the Black Hat Briefings, a $1500-a-head security seminar attended by IT (information technology) professionals from the government and private sector. According to Moss

Figure 8.3: Jeff Moss

The purpose of the Black Hat Briefings is to put the people developing the tools used by and against hackers face to face with the information managers who are being hacked. To accomplish this, we assemble a group of vendor-neutral security professionals in the same room and let them talk candidly about the problems that networks face and the solutions to those problems. No frills, just straight talk by people who make it their business to explore the ever-changing security space. Spanning two days, topics include Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS), Computer Forensics (CF), Incident Response, secure programming techniques, and tool selection for securing and effectively monitoring your network. The Black Hat Briefings also includes a separate track, nicknamed the White Hat Briefings, developed by the National Computer Security Center (NCSC) of the National Security Agency, specifically designed for CEOs and CIOs. While the Black Hat Briefings have a technology orientation, this track is intended for those who hire the organization's key security personnel.

Figure 8.4: BlackHat Web site