Dan graduated from Imperial College London and holds a Master of Engineering in Software Engineering. He joined Kaspersky in 2014 and since then his work focuses on developing threat intelligence systems, processing big data and creating new technologies to fight advanced persistent threats. While monitoring local and European threat landscape, Dan is also involved in the Honeypots-as-a-Service project, working on joint research with multiple industry players, trying to protect against IoT malware and attacks. Additionally, he also monitors fake news / disinformation and public opinion swinging campaigns happening in the past 3 years. Part of his research can be seen in recordings from various conferences such as The Security Analyst Summit, Def Camp, RSAC, Hack.Lu, Hack In the Box GSEC, etc. When not meddling around with network cables or bricking routers he can be found playing board games and snowboarding the slopes across the world.

Internet Balkanization in an era of military conflict

The war in Ukraine completely changed our lives. Unfortunately these changes are also reflected in cyberspace. Since the beginning of the war, the number of attacks skyrocketed, with attacks from small factions (independent, or organized mercenaries) and even more advanced attacks targeting key sectors such as telecom, gov, critical infrastructure. Unfortunately, a lot of important decisions were made hastily and with a big impact on our lives. For example, we’ve seen a lot of CERTs pushing block lists to major ISPs to protect users from “malicious” content. Lists in which legitimate websites were also included. Another example would be companies blocking subscription services and updates with no warning to various vendors from the countries involved in the current war.In the long run these decisions may stand to weaken the security of all the parties involved. This practical talk is aimed at both technical and non-technical specialists. I will go through the major changes that happened in the past year, starting with a brief history of most important events/attacks, followed by the current threat landscape. We will then discuss why the balkanization of the internet is definitely not a good idea (especially in the cybersecurity field) and close with some predictions for the next months to come.