Defcon cybersecurity convo draws hackers, spies and recruiters
Monday, August 3, 2009
The Defcon cybersecurity conference in Las Vegas this weekend, along with its sister event Black Hat USA 2009, demonstrated how the once underground world of hackers has gone mainstream. For the second year in a row, the U.S. Department of Defense was recruiting at the events.
U.S. Air Force Col. Michael Convertino said he found 60 candidates for enlisted and civilian cybersecurity positions while recruiting at last year's twin conferences and decided to come back again this year, according to IDG News Service.
"We have many empty jobs, empty slots that we can't fill," Convertino said, IDG News reported.
Defcon and Black Hat founder Jeff Moss, a/k/a Dark Tangent, has himself joined forces with the U.S. government's cybersecurity apparatus. Earlier this year, Moss was appointed to a security advisory council of the Department of Homeland Security.
Meanwhile, some unwelcome guests showed up at Defcon this year. IDG News reported that four South Korean journalists were ejected from the conference Friday on suspicion of spying.
One of the conference's senior organizers, who goes by "Priest," told IDG News that the four were posing as journalists. This kind of incident happens nearly every year, Priest said, with members of Mossad and the French Foreign Legion having tried the same tactic to get information from hackers and security researchers.
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