In-depth Interview: Sebastian Pöplau

Sebastian Pöplau (@poeplau) is the lead developer of the Ghost USB Honeypot, a detection system for USB malware. He is an IT security enthusiast and a full member of the Honeynet Project. He has studied in Bonn, Germany, and Santa Barbara, CA, and works with Lastline. He will be giving a live demo about code-loading techniques on Android during the annual The Honeynet Project Workshop in Warsaw on May 12. Here you have a good chance to get to know him a bit more.

Tell us, why did you become a security expert?
I find it exciting to look at the internals of computers and the software they run that most people never (want to) see. And the way both malware and security software play with those internals is just amazing :)

And what will you talk about?
I’ll be presenting on the security implications of externally loaded code in Android apps. In short, there are many apps that load code from the Internet, and a lot of them do it in an insecure way. Also, malware has its ways to benefit from the ability to load external code at runtime.

What do you love the most being a security expert?
I love that you get deep insights into computers and operating systems.

So, what do you think the future security threats will be like?
If I knew, I would prevent them from becoming a threat ;) More seriously, I think that attacks through humans - the often unaware users - will increase in importance. If a system is well secured from a technical point of view, why not trick a user with legitimate access into helping to get in?

And what is your best tip for (upcoming) security professionals today?
Be curious! That’s very general, but I think it’s at the core of what drives you to become knowledgeable in our field.

Last question, maybe a little subjective, why should people come to or sponsor the upcoming (and awesome) HP workshop in Warshaw?
There’s going to be an impressive lineup of security experts from different areas - who wouldn’t want to meet them? ;)