Hi Folks, #Hacktivity2019 is coming in 45 days and we would like to highlight some major program elements of the conference for you.

As you might already know, the official program has been announced at the beginning of August. At the 16th Hacktivity IT Security Festival, we are hosting 48 speakers from 16 different countries to maintain an international and truly professional atmosphere. Our presenters will talk about the latest topics of IT security including ATM hacking, car hacking via CANbus, DeepFake and fake news spreading, Chinese social credit system, security of GSM alarm systems and many-many more.

Our keynote speakers will be Kelly Shortridge, the vice president of product strategy at Capsule8, and Dave Lewis, the global advisory CISO of Cisco, but Tobias Schrödel aka ComedyHacker will return to the stage with a brand new talk as well.

In addition to the presentations, there will be 2 hours long comprehensive workshop sessions this year again with 6 different topics, but people who want to deepen their professional knowledge can also take part of 3 days long comprehensive training sessions right before the conference. Hacktivity Training Participants can visit #Hacktivity2019 conference for free, and they will get 1-month free premium access to the training platform of Avatao.

The biggest bang of #Hacktivity2019 will be the electronic hardware-hacking badge that is going to be distributed among ticket buyers while the stock lasts. The badge is sponsored by the Cyber Risk Services Team of Deloitte Hungary and it has connectivity over USB, WiFi, and IR, it contains 6 touch buttons, 128×64 LCD screen, 6 RGB LEDs, and a Buzzer. The ESP32 on the badge runs MicroPython so people can write apps easily for the gadget. In addition, there will be a so-called Hatchery (app-store) at the venue of the conference, so people can upload their apps and download others’ to their own badge. If you want to have one of the #Hacktivity2019 hardware-hacking badges, you must get your ticket on time, because we can provide these gadgets to ticket buyers only while the stock lasts!

On the second day of #Hacktivity2019 (Saturday, 26 October 2019) the HackCenter is going to move to the Security Dome which is going to be the heaven for hackers who want to solve some exciting challenges, share their thoughts with each other, looking for a solution to a specified problem, or just have questions in a certain topic. There will be also 5-10 minutes long lightning talks where hackers can present their ideas or try their presentation skills. Do you have a topic or an idea that’s not fully developed? Bring it in and we’ll help you work it out! Maybe you can finalize and present it at the next BSidesBUD conference in March 2020. ?

If you like CTF games, you will have the opportunity to try your skills at the conference as well! Visit the HackCenter and take part of the CTF challenges created by SecureITeam and the Hackerspace squad of Budapest and Szeged! As always, teams will compete for the two days, but instead of awarding the first team, there will be another challenge at the end of the second day. The first and second team can take part in the SPEED HACKING COMPETITION. (The whole teams can participate but only one team member can sit in front of the computer.) Three medium difficulty challenges have to be solved in less than 90 minutes to win the CTF. What makes this interesting that players have to log in to a jumpbox (Kali Linux), and the screen of these jumpboxes will be displayed on a projector. Conference attendees will be able to follow how the best players play CTF in real-time. To make things even more interesting, two commentators will spice up the competition.

We are working hard to make #Hacktivity2019 our best conference ever, and hope that you will like the new features of the conference. Get your ticket on time and stay tuned for more info!

The Hacktivity Team