xIoT Hacking Demonstrations & Strategies to Disappoint Bad Actors
Brian Contos
BSides NYC 2023 (0x04) · Day 1 · Talk - Red
In a compelling presentation at BSides NYC, Brian Contos, Chief Strategy Officer at Sevco Security, illuminated the pervasive and often-overlooked security risks associated with **Extended Internet of Things (xIoT)** devices. Contos, a veteran with 25 years in cyber security and a history of building successful startups, argued that xIoT represents a massive, yet critically vulnerable, attack surface that most organizations are ill-equipped to defend. His talk not only detailed the alarming ease with which these devices can be compromised but also provided a strategic framework for integrated asset intelligence to counter these threats effectively.
AI review
Competent survey of xIoT attack surface with two live demos that land the point viscerally — crushing a can with a Notepad edit is memorable stagecraft. But this is fundamentally a well-executed awareness talk built on known-good material, not original research, and the back half slides into a vendor-adjacent pitch for a category of tools Contos's employer plays in.