VB2015 paper: The ethics and perils of APT research: an unexpected transition into intelligence brokerage

Juan Andrés Guerrero-Saade discusses the perils and ethical conundrums that arise as the industry enters a new playing field.

Many security researchers have been part of the security community for long enough to remember the days when the typical adversary was a 17-year-old teenager operating from their bedroom. These days, however, some of the adversaries faced by many researchers and companies are powerful and resourceful nation states and intelligence agencies.

In a paper he presented at VB2015 in Prague, "The ethics and perils of APT research: an unexpected transition into intelligence brokerage", Kaspersky Lab researcher Juan Andrés Guerrero-Saade explains that the change in typical adversary has consequences that go far beyond the fact that the malware is a little more advanced, and OPSEC matters a bit more. In fact, we have entered a whole new playing field that we have barely begun to understand.

You can read the paper here in HTML-format, or download it here as a PDF, and find the video on our YouTube channel, or embedded below.

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