Black Hat: Mozilla security boss hacks organiser's video stream

Black Hat founder says hacking conference systems is to be expected

The supplier of video streaming for the Black Hat 2010 conference has been caught out by Michael Coates, Mozilla's head of web security.

Coates was unable to attend the conference in person but had the option of paying $395 (£250) to watch some of the presentations streamed over the internet by Inxpo.

However, a simple Google search turned up a log-in screen which allowed anyone with an email address to open an account and view the video without inputting any credit card information.

"Now, to be fair, Black Hat didn't operate this video service themselves," Coates wrote in his blog. "But it's still a bit ironic that the largest hacking conference in the world had this security hole in their video streaming service."

This year's conference was the first to offer a video streaming service. The organisers took video very seriously, and professional camera crews were much in evidence throughout the briefings.

One area in which Inxpo scored highly, however, was in fixing the problem. Coates informed the organisers and, within 30 minutes, was in direct contact with Inxpo which sorted out the problem in under four hours.

Black Hat founder Jeff Moss told IDG that such problems were to be expected in a new service, and that it was usual for delegates to try to hack systems.

"It's kind of like their trial by fire: welcome to Black Hat," he said, praising Coates for his work. "Good for him. That's cool. If you can't protect your stuff, that's what happens."