SAN FRANCISCO, July 15, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Black Hat, the world’s leading producer of information security events, announces that Matt Blaze, McDevitt Chair in Computer Science and Law at Georgetown University, and Renée DiResta, Research Manager at Stanford Internet Observatory, will keynote Black Hat USA 2020, taking place virtually August 1st-6th. Matt Blaze will present on August 5th to discuss election security and Renée DiResta will kick off August 6th to explore the potential impacts of disinformation campaigns on the upcoming 2020 election.
Black Hat USA 2020 keynote lineup:
Stress-Testing Democracy: Election Integrity During a Global Pandemic – Presented by Matt Blaze
Wednesday, August 5, 9 AM PT
Blaze holds the McDevitt Chair in Computer Science and Law at Georgetown University. His work focuses on security, privacy, cryptography and scale, especially at the intersection of technology and public policy. In his talk, Blaze will focus on the security of the upcoming U.S. presidential election. Technologists have long warned that much of the technology and infrastructure we depend on for voting suffers from exploitable vulnerabilities that could be used to cast doubt on the integrity of elections. Those problems are extremely challenging under normal circumstances, but a global pandemic adds a new dimension to the mix: protecting the health of voters and election workers. Blaze will address how we can securely and robustly scale up safer, broadly accessible voting mechanisms between now and November and will explore the challenges – technological, logistical, and political – of keeping our elections running during a crisis.
Hacking Public Opinion – Presented by Renée DiResta
Thursday, August 6, 9 AM PT
DiResta investigates the spread of narratives across social and media networks, with an interest in understanding how platform design and economic incentives intersect with user behaviors and crowd dynamics. In 2018, at the behest of SSCI, she led an investigation into the Russian Internet Research Agency’s multi-year effort to manipulate American society and elections. A year later, she led an additional comprehensive investigation into influence capabilities that the GRU (Russian military intelligence) used alongside its hack-and-leak operations in the 2016 election. Renée has advised Congress, the State Department, and other academic, civic, and business organizations.
In her talk, DiResta will take a deep dive into the tactics behind some of the most impactful recent information operations and will demonstrate the ways in which hacking the information environment is similar and different from the kind of intrusions information security professionals normally deal with. She will conclude with a look ahead to the 2020 elections and will create a call-to-action for the audience to deploy their skills in the defense of democracy.
For more information and to view the full abstracts, visit: blackhat.com/us-20/briefings/schedule/index.html
Global & Sustaining Partners of Black Hat USA include: Sustaining Partners: CrowdStrike, Darktrace, ExtraHop, Jacobs, KnowBe4, Mimecast, Qualys, Recorded Future, SecurityScorecard; Global Partners: CheckSec, DomainTools, Facebook, Jacobs, KnowBe4, Qualys, Inc., Recorded Future, Synopsys, Varonis, VMRay.
About Black Hat
For more than 20 years, Black Hat has provided attendees with the very latest in information security research, development, and trends. These high-profile global events and trainings are driven by the needs of the security community, striving to bring together the best minds in the industry. Black Hat inspires professionals at all career levels, encouraging growth and collaboration among academia, world-class researchers, and leaders in the public and private sectors. Black Hat Briefings and Trainings are held annually in the United States, Europe and Asia. More information is available at: blackhat.com. Black Hat is brought to you by Informa Tech.
About Informa Tech
Informa Tech is a market leading provider of integrated research, media, training and events to the global Technology community. We're an international business of more than 600 colleagues, operating in more than 20 markets. Our aim is to inspire the Technology community to design, build and run a better digital world through research, media, training and event brands that inform, educate and connect. Over 7,000 professionals subscribe to our research, with 225,000 delegates attending our events and over 18,000 students participating in our training programmes each year, and nearly 4 million people visiting our digital communities each month. Learn more about Informa Tech.
Media Contact:
Heather Donner
Black Hat PR
BlackHatPR@informa.com