Hacking the mainframe

In the spring of 2013 a group of hackers get caught breaking into Logicas
mainframe, accessing highly sensitive information on the Swedish police, the
Swedish tax services and one of Scandinavia's largest banks Nordea. The
investigation following has become the most extensive internet security case
in Swedish history.

Today many mainframe installations are insecure due to a poor understanding
of security from mainframe operators and a poor understanding of mainframes
in the security community. In the Logica case the company was fast to point
out that it was not a security weakness that resulted in the breach but
rather the skill of the intruders.

Philip Young, also known as the Soldier of Fortran, has been researching
vulnerabilities in the operating system running on IBMs mainframes: z/OS.
During this years Sec-t conference in Stockholm, September 12th-13th, he
will talk about mainframes and common vulnerabilities. The talk will walk
you through aspects of the Logica breach to ensure your organization doesn't
face the same risks. Due to his interest in mainframes and z/OS, Young
himself was under investigation for the Logica breach.

Young has announced that he will be able to talk more openly about
previously undisclosed vulnerabilities at SEC-T.