#12 Cerberus
With support from 42 Porto (Venue).
Agenda:
18:00 - Intro and Welcome by the OWASP Porto chapter leadership
18:15 - Ransomware in the Wild: Behavioral Insights and the Road to Resilient Defense by Tânia Esteves
19:00 - Poisoned Workspaces - How to abuse and defend against developer targeted attacks by Luis Fontes
20:00 - Dinner and Drinks
Talks
Ransomware in the Wild: Behavioral Insights and the Road to Resilient Defense by Tânia Esteves
Abstract: Ransomware has become one of the most devastating threats in the digital age, bringing organizations to a standstill with staggering financial losses and widespread operational chaos.
But stopping today's ransomware demands more than just detection. It requires a dual strategy: the ability to stop attacks in their tracks and the resilience to recover fully when those defenses are breached. To build this, we must first understand the enemy. Modern ransomware strains are not static: They are living, evolving threats, constantly adopting stealthier evasion tactics and weaponizing new extortion methods, like data theft, to turn up the heat on their victims. In this presentation, we pull back the curtain on the current ransomware landscape, sharing distinct behavioral insights from five ransomware families we've analyzed. We'll also introduce the vision and direction of our latest research initiative: a project to strengthen ransomware protection in healthcare institutions.
Bio: Tânia Esteves is an Assistant Researcher at INESC TEC and an invited assistant professor at the University of Minho. She received her PhD in Informatics from the University of Minho in 2024. Her research focuses on diagnosing and benchmarking distributed and data-centric applications, as well as enhancing systems security and data privacy. She has authored several peer-reviewed publications in renowned conferences and contributes to research projects in distributed systems, storage, and cybersecurity.
External links:
- Personal website: https://taniaesteves.github.io/
- INESC TEC profile: https://www.inesctec.pt/en/people/tania-esteves
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tania-esteves
Poisoned Workspaces - How to abuse and defend against developer targeted attacks By Luis Fontes
Abstract: Developers have become a prime target for attackers from nation-state groups like DPRK threat actors to hackers exploiting the software supply chain or stealing valuable AI API keys. This talk covers the most common ways developers are being targeted today, including malicious dependencies, compromised tools, and AI key exfiltration. We’ll look at how these attacks work, how to spot them early, and practical steps developers can take to secure their environments and workflows.
Bio: Luis Fontes is a seasoned security engineer with nearly a decade of experience helping organizations strengthen their security posture and defend against evolving cyber threats. Over the past four years, he has focused on the financial crypto sector. Currently, Luis works at Xapo, a crypto-native bank, where he develops and implements advanced security solutions to protect customer assets and ensure the safety of banking operations in a highly regulated environment.