Michael Schrenk

Michael Schrenk has developed software that collects and processes massive amounts of data for some of the biggest news agencies in Europe and leads a competitive intelligence consultancy in Las Vegas. He consults on information security and Big Data everywhere from Moscow to Silicon Valley, and most places in between. Mike is the author of Webbots, Spiders, and Screen Scrapers. He has lectured at journalism conferences in Belgium and the Netherlands and has created several weekend data workshops for the Centre for Investigative Journalism in London. Along the way, he’s been interviewed by BBC, the Christian Science Monitor, National Public Radio, and many others. Mike is also an eight-time speaker at the notorious DEF CON hacking conference. He may be best known for building software that over a period of a few months autonomously purchased over $13 million dollars worth of cars by adapting to real-time market conditions.

Malware Included

Day 1 - 27th Nov 13:30-14:20 Main Hall #Influencers Advanced

There’s no doubt that today’s developers benefit from imported third-party libraries. Easy to import applications like Google Charts and frameworks like jQuery facilitate quicker software development cycles and more professional results. But while the use of imported third-party libraries is on the rise, there is little awareness that unvalidated, and uncontrolled, third-party include files could also be used as attack vectors for delivering malware. To better understand the potential scope of this problem, this talk shares the results of a survey conducted to gauge the prevalence of websites that import uncontrolled, unvalidated, third-party software. We’ll then look at how these include files could be used to deliver malware, compromise privacy, or deliver ransomware. Finally, we’ll explore ways to mitigate the dangers of importing third-party software libraries.

How Metadata Makes Big Data Bigger

Day 2 - 28th Nov 10:30-11:20 Hall 8 #AIST Advanced

When most people here the word “metadata” they instinctively think of embedded fragments of information that help describe digital photographs or office documents. But in other people’s hands, metadata provides the context where data exists. And that context can be converted into powerful intelligence that expands and enhances available information. When properly applied, metadata can be used to fill-in the gaps between data to reveal a picture that couldn’t be painted by the original data alone. In this talk, you’ll learn how metadata is created from existing data to solve business problems. The speaker will also share techniques he has used to answer questions about the viability of one of his own businesses. Additionally, you will also learn techniques to keep your organization from leaking information through metadata creation.