CSA Invites Hackers to Participate in an Insider Attack of a Software Defined Perimeter (SDP)

Bob Flores, Former CTO of the CIA and President & CEO at Applicology Incorporated to Serve as Judge

The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) today announced additional details on its upcoming virtual hackathon, open to anyone globally, being held in conjunction with the RSA Conference, kicking off Monday, February 24th.

The hackathon will kick off with a workshop on CSA’s Software Defined Perimeter (SDP) on Monday, February 24th, from 2:00p.m. to 3:00 p.m.
at Moscone West, Room 2008. The workshop will provide participants a hands-on overview of the SDP protocol as well as detailed view of the hackathon. To register for the free workshop, email [email protected].

For the virtual hackathon, participants will be given the IP addresses of the target file server as well as the SDP components protecting them. This in effect will simulate an ‘insider attack’ – modeled after the real world environments and one of the most difficult to prevent – on both private cloud and public cloud infrastructure. Participants will also have access to a reference SDP system to learn how the system works to plan their attack.

The first participant to successfully capture the target information on the protected server will receive an expenses paid trip to DEFCON ® 22, held in Las Vegas August 7-10, 2014. Bob Flores, former CTO of the CIA and President & CEO at Applicology Incorporated to will serve as judge of the event, naming the official winner of any successful hack. Contest rules are available at https://cloudsecurityalliance.org/research/sdp/.

The Software Defined Perimeter (SDP) Initiative is a new CSA project aimed at protecting application infrastructure from network-based attacks by using the cloud to create highly secure and trusted end-to-end networks between any IP addressable entities, allowing for systems that are highly resilient to network attacks.

Members of the media and analyst community interested in attending the event should contact [email protected] for more information, to receive press credentials and to schedule interviews with CSA leadership and conference speakers.