August Meetup | NLC Lakeview Heist
You're on campus. You open your laptop, a Wi-Fi login page pops up, you type your username and password without thinking twice. Everybody does it. That's the whole problem.
When students log into a campus portal, they aren't just checking grades — they're opening up their digital identity, their financial aid, and their academic records. So how hard is it, really, for someone to slip into the middle of that moment?
Stephen Symms found out during his second semester, as a class project. This talk is that project turned into a full heist: a multi-stage penetration test simulation against a college campus wireless network.
🎯 What's in the talk?
▫ Reconnaissance — walking the grounds and evaluating the physical attack surface across campus
▫ A simple but very effective wireless exploit, run on pocket-sized hardware: Wi-Fi Pineapple, Flipper Zero, and a custom Lilygo T-Embed running Bruce firmware
▫ Deploying a convincing spoofed captive portal, with social engineering triggers like malicious QR codes
▫ The full attack surface mapped against the STRIDE threat modeling framework and the CIA triad — where open campus networks fail systemically
▫ The blue team pivot: shutting down rogue access points with WPA2 Enterprise, multi-factor authentication, and Wireless Intrusion Prevention Systems (WIPS)
You'll walk out understanding how rogue APs actually work, and what it takes to keep an enterprise education network off the target list.
🙌 New to this stuff? You're exactly who we want in the room. No security background needed — just bring your curiosity. Stephen started this as a class project a couple semesters into school, so if you've ever wondered whether you're "ready" to dig into this stuff: yes, you are.
🗓 Agenda:
🔹 6:30 – Socialize & Network
🔹 7:00 – Community Corner (share your recent work in 5 minutes!)
🔹 7:30 – Featured Talk
🔹 8:00 – Socialize & Network
This event is open to everyone; students, professionals, hobbyists, and the infosec-curious alike. Whether you're into cybersecurity, privacy, hacking, or just want to hang out with good people doing cool stuff, you'll fit right in!