This meeting is organized as an on-site event only! Max. 40 people and bring your own device (laptop) to play the game.
Event: “Penetrate an IT network with a digital attack and defense game.”
PenQuest is an attacker—defender meta model converted into an educational strategy game. It is intended to teach managers, techies, students, and other, IT-affine folks about the ins and outs of cyber-attacks – including how to defend against them. One of the players represents the attacker (hacker, pen tester, secret agent, etc.) while the other takes the role of defender (company, university, military organization, etc.), whose task it is to prevent the attacker from achieving their sinister goal.
You will learn to:
a) Understand vulnerabilities & threats derived from adversary behavior.
b) Match attacks to appropriate security measures.
c) Explore a complex topic.
In the meetup participants will get the chance to play the game themselves and explore a number of threat scenarios such as data theft, denial of service, or a ransomware attack (or more exotic ones; we’re flexible there). In closing we’d love to discuss future developments (e.g., reinforcement learning for strategy optimization) and (your?) ideas for improved realism, reward mechanisms, and more.
The Penquest game is part of the project “INODES” of the University of Vienna
Speaker & Details
Robert Luh (security researcher at St. Pölten University and researcher at the University of Vienna)
Sebastian Eresheim (security researcher at St. Pölten University and researcher at the University of Vienna)
Talk language: English
On-site event only!
!!! Bring your own device (laptop)!!!!
About the Speaker
Robert Luh is a lecturer and security researcher at St. Pölten University of Applied Sciences and the University of Vienna, respectively. Following his studies in information security, he earned his PhD at De Montfort University in Leicester. He currently teaches digital forensics, malware analysis, and biometrics and is working with a small team to develop an AI-powered cyber defense game for education and risk assessment.
Sebastian Eresheim is a junior researcher at the University of Applied Sciences St. Pölten and a project assistant at the University of Vienna. He completed his master’s degree in information security at St. Pölten University of Applied Sciences in 2018. He has also been studying mathematics at TU Vienna since 2016. His current research interests are in the field of artificial intelligence and include reinforcement as well as deep learning. He currently writes his PhD thesis under the supervision of Univ.-Prof. Dr. Edgar Weippl and Dr. Sebastian Schrittwieser at the University of Vienna, Research Group Security and Privacy.
Agenda
18:00: Gathering at SBA Research (5th floor)
18:05: Short introduction and overview (SBA Research & PenQuest)
18:20: Setup & Play the game!
20:30: Drinks and snacks
Free Registration
Register for free on Meetup or contact Nicolas Petri.
Safer Internet Month 2023
Due to the semester holidays, this event couldn’t take place at the “Safer Internet Day 2023” but will be part of the “Safer Internet-Aktionsmonat”.
#SID2023AT
About the Safer Internet Day
On Tuesday, February 07, 2023, the international Safer Internet Day takes place for the 20th time. The motto this year was again: “Safer Internet Day: Together for a better internet”. It is organized together with the Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research and the Federal Chancellery.
The annual day is organized by the European Commission as part of the Safer Internet Program. More than 100 countries worldwide participate in Safer Internet Day to raise awareness about safe and responsible Internet and cell phone use.