Ken Sipe

Web Application Security Workshop

9:00 AM MDT

As a web application developer, most of the focus is on the user stories and producing business value for your company or clients. Increasingly however the world wide web is more like the wild wild web which is an increasingly hostile environment for web applications. It is absolutely necessary for web application teams to have security knowledge, a security model and to leverage proper security tools.

This training workshop on security will provide an overview of the security landscape starting with the OWASP top ten security concerns with current real world examples of each of these attack vectors. The first session will consist of a demonstration and labs using hacker tools to get an understanding of how a hacker thinks. It will include a walk through of the ESAPI toolkit as an example of how to solve a number of these security concerns including hands-on labs using the OWASP example swingset.

The workshop will include several hands on labs from the webgoat project in order to better understand the threats that are ever so common today.

Attendees will come away with the following skills / capabilities:

• threat modeling
• security audit plan
• introduction to Pen testing
• key / certificate management
• fixing web application security issues

Don't be the weakest link on the web!

OOP Principles

8:30 AM MDT

For decades object-oriented programming has been sold (perhaps over sold) as the logical programming paradigm which provides “the way” to software reuse and reductions in the cost of software maintenance as if it comes for free with the simple selection of the an OO language. Even with the renewed interests in functional languages, the majority of development shops are predominately using object-oriented languages such as Java, C#, and Ruby. So most likely you are using an OO language… How is that reuse thing going? Is your organization realizing all the promises? Even as a former Rational Instructor of OOAD and a long time practitioner, I find great value in returning to the basics. This session is a return to object-oriented basics.

This session is intended to balance the often-touted theoretical object-oriented practices with lessons from the real world. The session will start with a review of some of the basics regarding abstractions and encapsulation. Although simple concepts, we will push the boundary of how these techniques are applied. We will discuss the difference between analysis and design and how that is reflected in our code. We will also look at the limitations of Java the language as outlined in Josh Block’s book “Effective Java”. The session will go past the basics of object-oriented principles and into what our true goals of development really are.

Networks for Programmers

10:30 AM MDT

In the words of John Gage, “The network is the computer”. At the heart of everything we do is a complex system of infrastructure from which we are often abstracted. For general application development this abstraction provides the convenience of simplifying our efforts. With a growing number of mobil applications with intermittent connectivity and higher latency, and with increased hostility on the network from a security standpoint, there is great value in pulling back the curtain and understanding the details of this computer.

This session will start with the underlying understanding of networking at a low level. At this level we will discuss, IP, MAC, ARP, DNS and DHCP. As we walk up an abstraction level, we discuss sockets, NAT, gateways and firewalls along with the use of TCP and UDP. Spending some time at this layer can make network developers more productive, as we look at tools which help us answer the question, “who owns this port?“, “where is this packet going?” and “What is my latency and why?“.

The session will end with a little fun looking at wifi, where will we sniff, snort, crack:) From a security stand point we will look at the challenges of wifi and how it has become the weakest component on the net.

This session is extremely fast-pace. The attendees will come away with a more enhanced understanding of the this thing we call the internet. It will include through discussion or demonstration tools such as tcproute, tcpdump, nemesis, nmap, tcpmon and wireshark.

Complexity of Complexity

3:15 PM MDT

Of all the non-functional requirements of software development, complexity receives the least attention and seems to be the most important from a long term standard point. This talk will look at some of forces that drive complexity at the code level and at a system level and their impact. We will discuss what causes us to over look complexity, how our perception of it changes over time and what we can do about it?

In this session we will break down the meaning of complexity and simplicity and measure the application of those means against the common software development dogma. Looking at common development trends and pressures, we'll discuss where simplify does and doesn't help. We will examine areas of development which at first glance seem to be simple (such as the creation of an equals method in Java), that end up being difficult or impossible based on normal constraints. We will example the drivers of complexity with some discussion on what you can do about it. This session will finish with a discussion around several challenges to high scale software architectures and how to keep it simple.

MongoDB: Scaling Web Applications

5:00 PM MDT

Google “MongoDB is Web Scale” and prepare to laugh your tail off. With such satire, it easy to pass off MongoDB as a passing joke… but that would be a mistake. The humor is in the fact there seems to be no end to those who parrot the MongoDB benefits without a clue. This session is about getting a clue.

Get past the hype and hyperbole associated with NoSQL. This session will introduce MongoDB through live working sessions demonstrating the pros and cons of MongoDB development. The session will then focus on a recent short project focused on large scale. We’ll discuss database design to support high scale read access. Throughout this case study we will discuss the consequences of the MongoDB choice. The session will finish with a review of the production topology to support growth in scale.

Hacking Workshop

9:00 AM MDT

The net has cracks and crackers are among us. With all the news of security failures, it can be a challenge to know what is FUD and what is really at risk and to what extent. This session isn’t about hacking an application together nor is it about coding a solution. It is about looking at the network and network infrastructure and understanding some of its weaknesses. This workshop is a 50% mix of lecture / discussion and hands on attacking in order to best understand the challenges.

The labs will require the use of:

• a virtual machine with BackTrack 5
• a wifi adaptor
• and a laptop.

We will have ISO installations of BackTrack 5 for you to install on your VM. It is best if you have this pre-installed, it can be downloaded at http://www.backtrack-linux.org/ . In order to run backtrack, you will want to install this to a virtual machine, if this is new to you, pick up virtualbox or vmware.

The wifi adaptor needed is an Alfa AWUS036H or Alfa AWUS036NHA. You will need 1 of these external adaptors. There are ~ $30 at amazon.

Through the labs we will:

• Disassociate wireless traffic
• Crack a WEP key
• Learn to break through a WPA device
• Scan for open ports

Hacking Workshop

11:00 AM MDT

The net has cracks and crackers are among us. With all the news of security failures, it can be a challenge to know what is FUD and what is really at risk and to what extent. This session isn’t about hacking an application together nor is it about coding a solution. It is about looking at the network and network infrastructure and understanding some of its weaknesses. This workshop is a 50% mix of lecture / discussion and hands on attacking in order to best understand the challenges.

The labs will require the use of:

• a virtual machine with BackTrack 5
• a wifi adaptor
• and a laptop.

We will have ISO installations of BackTrack 5 for you to install on your VM. It is best if you have this pre-installed, it can be downloaded at http://www.backtrack-linux.org/ . In order to run backtrack, you will want to install this to a virtual machine, if this is new to you, pick up virtualbox or vmware.

The wifi adaptor needed is an Alfa AWUS036H or Alfa AWUS036NHA. You will need 1 of these external adaptors. There are ~ $30 at amazon.

Through the labs we will:

• Disassociate wireless traffic
• Crack a WEP key
• Learn to break through a WPA device
• Scan for open ports

Getting Agile Right!

1:30 PM MDT

Whether you are just getting started, or you’ve made an attempt and well… it could be better… a lot better, this session is for you. Ken has been working on Agile projects as a coach and mentor for a number of years. Come discover the common reasons teams fail to get it right. Bring your own challenges and lets discuss. This is set to be an engaging and illuminating discussion.

This can be a dynamic discussion where challenges facing attendees may have us to focus on some areas and tips of agile development. We will certainly talk about how team or management choices to deviate from core agile practices add risk to a project with suggestions on how to resolve many of these challenges.

Architecture: Non-Functional Requirements

3:15 PM MDT

The agile focus of software development puts heavy focus on user requirements through user stories. However we can not lose sight of the non-functional requirements as well. The software could be written to the exact specification and desire of the user, however if it takes 5 minutes for a request response, or it only supports 2 users or it isn't secure, then we still haven't done our jobs as developers.

This session will focus on the non-functional requirements of software development, namely: Performance, Scalability, Security, and Software Monitoring and Management. Each subject area discussion will include, goals, design practices, tools, and where it fits in the software development life-cycle.

Enterprise Security API library from OWASP

1:30 PM MDT

When it comes to cross cutting software concerns, we expect to have or build a common framework or utility to solve this problem. This concept is represented well in the Java world with the loj4j framework, which abstracts the concern of logging, where it logs and the management of logging. The one cross cutting software concern which seems for most applications to be piecemeal is that of security. Security concerns include certification generation, SSL, protection from SQL Injection, protection from XSS, user authorization and authentication. Each of these separate concerns tend to have there own standards and libraries and leaves it as an exercise for the development team to cobble together a solution which includes multiple needs…. until now… Enterprise Security API library from OWASP.

This session will look at a number of security concerns and how the ESAPI library provides a unified solution for security. This includes authorization, authentication of services, encoding, encrypting, and validation. This session will discuss a number of issues which can be solved through standardizing on the open source Enterprise Security API.