Christina Johns is a Principal Malware Analyst at Red Canary with 15 years experience. Prior to becoming a malware analyst she worked in a variety of areas including web application assessment, android forensics, and incident response. Her research interests lie at the intersection of automating binary analysis and malware reverse engineering. She is the author of OpenSecurityTraining2’s Introductory IDA Debugging class. She has taught multiple intro to CTF workshops, volunteers with Women’s Cyberjutsu, and enjoys participating in CTFs to build her skills and help others do the same.

Look Ma, No IDA! Malware Analysis Without Reverse Engineering (<– add to your schedule)

Do you think malware analysis is out of your reach because assembly code looks like reading the matrix? Fear not, this talk will convince you that learning assembly code is not the best place to start your malware analysis journey. For starters, the modern malware landscape is diverse and malicious code isn’t always compiled into assembly. Not every use case for malware analysis requires a deep dive and there are many great tools and services that provide information about a malware sample you can build your analysis on.

If you work as an incident responder, detection engineer, threat hunter, or intel analyst, you probably already do some malware analysis but don’t realize it. And if you don’t but would like to, this talk will discuss the tools and knowledge you should focus on first before embarking on groking the intel x86 manual.

Come see Christina Johns at RVAsec 13!

Paul Asadoorian is currently a Principal Security Researcher for Eclypsium, focused on firmware and supply chain security. Paul’s passion for firmware security extends back many years to the WRT54G hacking days and reverse engineering firmware on IoT devices for fun. Paul and his long-time podcast co-host Larry Pesce co-authored the book “WRTG54G Ultimate Hacking” in 2007, which fueled the firmware hacking fire even more. In 2005, Paul founded Security Weekly, a weekly podcast dedicated to hacking and information security. Paul grew Security Weekly into a network of security podcasts spanning multiple topics, such as application security and business. Paul is still the host of one of the longest-running security podcasts, Paul’s Security Weekly, and hosts Eclypsium’s Below The Surface podcast. He enjoys coding in Python, hacking around on ESP32, and telling everyone he uses Linux as his daily driver desktop OS.

X (Twitter): @securityweekly

The Security Professional’s Guide To The Linux Desktop (<– add to your schedule)

Want to learn how running Linux as your desktop OS can make your life BETTER? This talk is for you! Every year the Linux nerds say, “This will be the year of the Linux desktop!”. If we put Android and ChromeOS aside for a moment, there has never been such a year. However, I switched to Linux on my laptops in 2016 and fully converted all my desktops in 2019. I’m never looking back. Many of you reading this are already thinking/voicing your opinions. I’ve heard for so many years, “I don’t want to run Linux as my desktop because [blank]”. This talk will dispel the myths and hopefully getting you on team Linux desktop! If you are open-minded about Linux as a desktop, haven’t tried it in a while, worried about Windows 10 going end-of-support in 2025, and want to learn about the benefits of the Linux desktop, this talk is for you. Maybe you even use Linux as your desktop OS and just want some tips and tricks; this is the talk for you. If you’ve already decided that Windows or MacOS is perfectly fine and Linux is just annoying, this talk may not be for you.

Come see Paul Asadoorian at RVAsec 13!