New Uni Course .... - SV650.org

15-03-11, 10:43 AM

http://www.northumbria.ac.uk/?view=C...ge=requirement

Interesting at best I can kind of see the need for it but wouldn't it be better named something less terrorist'y?

G · 15-03-11, 11:00 AM

If you need to go to uni to learn it then there is already a million 12 - 20 year olds that are already considerably better at it than you will ever be... making the degree almost worthless.

The FBI and other national security entities have been running competition for people that can hack for years.

If I remember rightly one 14 year old got kick out halfway through the competition, so he hack into the FBI computers from home and gave himself top score, deleting everyone else as revenge... awesome skills.

15-03-11, 11:43 AM

Nah sounds good. Don't think of the terroristy angle but more the commercial angle. PCI-DSS standards are something of a specialist subject, one of the requirements for larger organisations (they're ranked upon the number of card transactions they take per supplier per year) is for regular pen testing, quarterly automated port scan rubbish but generally looking at yearly "proper" pen testing. Especially on things like web carts. And yes, there's thousands of nerds who can do it better but if this takes you to a level where you can protect against script kiddies breaking your web store cart then you've got 99% of the battle done.

Oh and PCI-DSS is still as useful as a dead fish in terms of actually protecting your card data (esp from inside jobs) but at the least it gets people thinking about things and beginning to make some sensible improvements.

timwilky · 15-03-11, 11:54 AM

We subject all our internet facing web sites to "penetration" testing. It costs a fortune. Alot of the work is automated, but the clever guys need to know their stuff to make sure we don't expose our systems to the 20 year old real hackers.

The term that used to be used was white hats and black hats. black being the naughty people out there and the white being the ones that would use their methods in order to amour and secure systems.

Glad to see somewhere is offering training in the dark arts.

15-03-11, 10:43 AM	#1
454697819 Guest Posts: n/a	New Uni Course .... http://www.northumbria.ac.uk/?view=C...ge=requirement Interesting at best I can kind of see the need for it but wouldn't it be better named something less terrorist'y?

15-03-11, 11:00 AM	#2
G Member Mega Poster Join Date: Apr 2007 Posts: 3,770	Re: New Uni Course .... If you need to go to uni to learn it then there is already a million 12 - 20 year olds that are already considerably better at it than you will ever be... making the degree almost worthless. The FBI and other national security entities have been running competition for people that can hack for years. If I remember rightly one 14 year old got kick out halfway through the competition, so he hack into the FBI computers from home and gave himself top score, deleting everyone else as revenge... awesome skills. __________________ 6.67300 × 10-11 m3 kg-1 s-2

15-03-11, 11:43 AM	#3
MiniMatt Guest Posts: n/a	Re: New Uni Course .... Nah sounds good. Don't think of the terroristy angle but more the commercial angle. PCI-DSS standards are something of a specialist subject, one of the requirements for larger organisations (they're ranked upon the number of card transactions they take per supplier per year) is for regular pen testing, quarterly automated port scan rubbish but generally looking at yearly "proper" pen testing. Especially on things like web carts. And yes, there's thousands of nerds who can do it better but if this takes you to a level where you can protect against script kiddies breaking your web store cart then you've got 99% of the battle done. Oh and PCI-DSS is still as useful as a dead fish in terms of actually protecting your card data (esp from inside jobs) but at the least it gets people thinking about things and beginning to make some sensible improvements.

15-03-11, 11:54 AM	#4
timwilky Member Mega Poster Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Not in Yorkshire. (Thank God) Posts: 4,116	Re: New Uni Course .... We subject all our internet facing web sites to "penetration" testing. It costs a fortune. Alot of the work is automated, but the clever guys need to know their stuff to make sure we don't expose our systems to the 20 year old real hackers. The term that used to be used was white hats and black hats. black being the naughty people out there and the white being the ones that would use their methods in order to amour and secure systems. Glad to see somewhere is offering training in the dark arts. __________________ Not Grumpy, opinionated.