Back to the beginning: BlackHoodie in Austria!

4 years ago, the first edition of BlackHoodie took place in Austria, hosted by St Pölten University of Applied Science. Who could have guessed what would happen to this 15 person workshop? After reaching over 80 participants at last year’s Berlin edition, and travelling across the ocean for several US editions, we’re now going back to Austria for the second European edition this fall (not to be confused with the Hack.lu edition in October)! As every other BlackHoodie event, it’ll be free, women only, and crazy challenging :D

We’ll have a two days bootcamp, on the 7th and 8th of December, with the university inviting the attendees to a typical Austrian dinner on the 7th!

We’ll also do lightning talks for the first time, more info on that below.

TL;DR: basic facts

What: classes on mobile reverse engineering, both hardware and software

When: December 7th & 8th, 2019 - 9am-6pm

Where: Saint Pölten University of Applied Science, Matthias Corvinus-Straße 15, A-3100 St. Pölten

Who: Women

Registration: September 23rd, see newest post

We will run 2 sessions in parallel, each one being a 2-day workshop. NB: there are no beginner / advanced tracks, both will be equally as challenging and focus on different subjects

Finally, please note that we cannot cover travel or housing for attendees. Lunch and snacks during the weekend as well as dinner on the 7th will be offered by the University though.


Agenda

Track 1: Introduction to Android Reverse Engineering

Teacher: Maddie Stone

Topic: This workshop will teach attendees how to reverse engineer Android applications. We will cover both the Java and native code (ARM) aspects of reversing Android applications. Attendees should be ready to get their hands dirty with reversing malware, hunting for vulnerabilities, and unpacking obfuscated code using Ghidra and jadx.

Track 2: Mobile Hacking

Teacher: Priya Chalakkal

Topic: This workshop gives an introduction to smartphone security covering basics of application layer and telecommunication layer. The workshop will cover an introduction to mobile application pentesting, mainly focusing on Android but also covering parts of iOS. This includes owasp top 10 vulnerabilities and also basic reversing of mobile applications. Then we will look into the telecommunication layers, various network protocols involved in GSM and LTE and an introduction to the security concepts in different layers.

Prerequisites: Students are requested to bring a rooted android phone. There will be limited smartphones available during the workshop. So it helps if you have your own. Also, a linux machine on your laptop is necessary.

Lightning talks

Did you work on something cool lately? Now is the time to talk to us about it! For the first time ever, BlackHoodie will host lightning talks, giving anyone who wants it an opportunity to talk about what they do.

Technical details: The talks will be 5 or 10 minutes long, and registration will happen on-site. But keep it in mind!

Social dinner

The St. Pölten University of Applied Sciences will invite the attendees for dinner on the 7th! They plan a typical Austrian dinner with specialties such as Schweinsbraten, Wiener Schnitzel, Gulasch, Apfelstrudel, Sachertorte, Kaiserschmarrn and so on!


What is BlackHoodie?

BlackHoodie is a free, women only reverse engineering workshop. More information can be found here: https://www.blackhoodie.re/about/.

Why women-only?

The number of female engineers working on complex low level security topics is crushingly low. My past teaching experience shows me, that is not due to lack of interest in challenges, but has to do with aspiring hackerettes sporting impressive anxieties. And I get it, modern day computer security is an intimidating field, and the fact that this field’s engineers are usually all male, fancy death metal fashion and are offensive by definition, doesn’t help. But, among us, one doesn’t need to be male and death metal to be successful there. The BlackHoodie workshops aim to make complex subjects more tangible and less intimidating for women, in order to get motivated hackerettes started on their security careers. It is not about building walls around a minority, but about creating space, where participants can build confidence, foster shared interests, build connections, and in the end contribute themselves as part of a happier community. It keeps fascinating me how many former BlackHoodies keep sticking around, and do impressive work in several different areas of security.

  • Ella, Marion, Diane, Erika

Contact: blackhoodie.austria.2019(at)gmail.com