French Reporters at Black Hat Hacked Fellow Reporters

French Reporters at Black Hat Hacked Fellow Reporters - Via Threat Level:

LAS VEGAS -- Reporters covering the Black Hat Security Conference this week were apparently hacked by three French reporters.

A Black Hat spokeswoman, explained that three French reporters gathered log-in data for reporters in the Black Hat press room and tried to convince organizers of the Wall of Sheep to post the data publicly. The Wall of Sheep is a traditional feature at the DefCon hacker conference but was launched at Black Hat for the first time this year.

The Wall of Sheep is designed to shame conference attendees who don't connect to the internet using secure methods. The Wall of Sheep organizers sniff the wireless network to grab log-in information that's sent in the clear, then display it on a wall for everyone to see. (See image above of Wall of Sheep organizers next to the Wall of Sheep display.) But the private wired network, which reporters at the conference use, is supposed to be off limits for the Black Hat game.

The spokeswoman said the three reporters didn't try to hide how they obtained the information and were honest with the Wall of Sheep administrators about where they collected it. The spokeswoman said the Wall of Sheep organizers refused to post the information.

The three French reporters have been identified as Mauro Israel, Marc Brami, and Dominique Jouniot. Israel and Brami registered with the conference as reporters for Global Security Magazine, a magazine which is one of the conference's media sponsors (media sponsors give the conference free advertising in their publications). The spokeswoman said that Brami has been covering the conference for his publication for a number of years. Journalists who saw the French reporters in the press room identified all three as males of middle age.

She said the reporters justified the act saying that they wanted to educate reporters to surf more securely. They told her that many reporters covering the Beijing Olympics aren't aware of the measures they need to take to secure their communications. They wanted to use the U.S. Black Hat security reporters as an example.

Efforts to contact the three -- who have been kicked out of the conference -- were unsuccessful.

Photo: Dave Bullock (eecue)/Wired.com

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