SQL Injection Attacks and Tips on How to Prevent Them

Wednesday, 28th October 2009 at 19:00 – 21:00
Queen Margaret Building, Dundee University

The Talk

In light of some recent events, such as the man who was convicted of stealing 130 million credit card details through a SQL Injection attack, it is imperative that developers understand what a SQL Injection Attack is, how they are carried out, and most importantly, how to defend your code against attack.

In this talk Colin Mackay will demonstrate a SQL Injection Attack on an application in a controlled environment*. He’ll show you where the vulnerable code lies and what you can do to harden it.

Although this talk uses C# as the application language and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 as the database engine many of the concepts and prevention mechanisms will apply to any application that accesses a database through SQL.

* Demonstrating an attack on a real system without the owner’s consent is a breach of the 1990 Misuse of Computers Act, hence the controlled environment.

The Speaker

Colin Angus Mackay is a Software Developer living in Glasgow. He has been programming since the age of 9 starting with a Sinclair ZX Spectrum. He became a professional software developer in 1994, using a Smalltalk based language called Magik. In 1996 he started using C++ commercially and in 2002 migrated to the emerging language of C#.

Colin has received a number of awards including Code Project MVP (for 5 years) and Microsoft MVP (for 3 years). He is a member of the British Computer Society and a Member of the Institution of Analysts and Programmers. He is currently the chairman of Scottish Developers and has organised the last two Developer Day Scotland conferences (with a third in the works).

You can find out more about SQL Injection Attacks on his blog amongst other things.

The Venue

We are meeting in the Queen Mother Building at Dundee University. After the meeting we normally retire to the the bar at Laing’s

The Agenda

18:45 Doors Open
19:00 Welcome
19:10 The Talk (Part 1)
19:55 Break
20:05 The Talk (Part 2)
20:45 Feedback & Prizes
21:00 Repair to the Pub

Registration

Space is limited, we would therefore ask that you sign up.

Credit Crunch Code – Time to Pay Back the Technical Debt

When

Glasgow: Tuesday, 8th September 2009 @ 18:30

The Talk

Technical debt is the cost of putting off good development practices. This debt, must be paid back to avoid the “interest payments” becoming crippling. This presentation will focus on a number of common developer (and project) behaviours that can lead to the build up of technical debt in a project, and together we will discuss and collaborate on methods to mitigate against them.

The Speaker

Upon leaving school Gary went into the banking industry where he worked his way to (near) the top, leading a special projects group tasked with solving the problem of how America’s low paid could afford to buy housing. Having made a fortune by selling mortgages to people whom he knew could not hope to repay them, he then made a second fortune selling on that debt to large financial institutions. Shortly after that Gary was invited to leave the banking industry and now works as a technical evangelist for Developer Express. Gary is committed to the "community" in the UK, and further afield, and can often be found speaking at community events up and down the country; except DDD7, but he doesn’t care about that at all, nope not one bit.

The Venue

We are meeting in Room M402 on the 4th Floor of the George Moore Building at Glasgow Caledonian University, Cowcaddens Road, Glasgow, G4 0BA

 

Got something to say, but not enough for a full presentation?

On Wednesday 18th February in Dundee Scottish Developers will be running an evening of Grok talks and Micro-presentations. If you want to talk about something come along and tell us about it!

A Grok Talk is a short 10 minute presentation or demo where you give people enough information to understand something new.

A micro-presentation is a short slide based presentation where you have a maximum of 20 slides and a maximum of 20 seconds per slide.

If you are interested just sign up and bring your laptop. If you don’t want to bring a laptop and your presentation is purely slide based we’ll have a laptop with PowerPoint 2007 on it that you can use.

If you don’t want to talk then that’s fine, just come along and take in information from a variety of people on a variety of subjects - There will be something for everyone.

Developer Day Scotland 2 - Call for Speakers Open

The Call for Speakers for Developer Day Scotland 2 has just opened. Developer Day Scotland 2 will be held in Glasgow on the 2nd May 2009.

If you would like to speak at Developer Day Scotland then the current proposals and the submission guidelines are available on the Developer Day Scotland website. You can submit sessions on any topic you like if you think they will appeal to a software development audience. Ultimately the community will vote for the sessions it wants to see.

Developer Day Scotland 2

Scotland’s annual community developer conference, Developer Day Scotland 2009, is returning on the 2nd May 2009. Show your support by displaying a badge on your blog or web site.

If you would like to take part and submit a session we will be opening the call for speakers later this month. We will accept any one-hour session that would be of interest to the developer community in Scotland on any subject and on any technology. When the call for speakers closes we will open it up to the community to vote for the sessions they most want to see.

Internet Information Services 7.0 for ASP.NET Developers

We’ve just confirmed that our Glasgow event for the 9th December will be Andrew Westgarth on IIS7 for ASP.NET Developers.

Talk Description

One of the biggest and best new features of Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista is Internet Information Server 7.0.  IIS 7.0 is the latest and most significant release of Microsoft’s Web Server. With this release comes a new extensibility model which gives developers more options than ever before, more diagnostic tools with which developers can debug and locate issues. During the session Andrew will investigate the new architecture, look at extending, configuring and developing for IIS7, take a look at its management user interface, and introduce the debugging and diagnostic facilities within IIS7.

Speaker Bio

Andrew Westgarth is an MVP (Internet Information Services) and the Chairman and Regional Coordinator for VBUG in the North East of England.  He is a Web Developer for Canford Group PLC and is responsible for their B2B websites.  Andrew is very active in the UK Developer Community, attending and speaking at multiple events, supporting users and other User Groups.  In the past he has spoken at VBUG’s National Two Day Conference; Developer Developer Developer Day 5 and local User Group meetings.   Andrew has experience in VB6/.NET; C#; ASP.NET; MCMS 2002 and Internet Information Services.  Andrew’s current technical interests include IIS 7.0; ASP.NET AJAX Extensions, Windows Server 2008 and Virtual Earth.

Venue

This event will be held in room M126 of the George Moore Building at Glasgow Caledonian University. Doors open at 18:30 for a 19:00 start.

Busy week ahead

It is a busy week ahead for developer events. We have 3 excellent events coming up which are sure to interest many people. Added to that there are events by other organisations too.

On Monday evening the Glasgow ALT.NET user group are holding a get together in Waxy O’Connor’s (West George Street, Glasgow)

On Tuesday evening, Scottish Developers have a SQL Server Double bill in the George Moore Building at Glasgow Caledonian University (Cowcaddens Road, Glasgow)

On Wednesday evening, Scottish Developers have a talk on Erlang in the Queen Mother Building at Dundee University (Nethergate, Dundee)

Map image

On Thursday afternoon, Microsoft will be telling you all about What’s New in Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 at their new offices at Waverley Gate (Waterloo Place, Edinburgh)

On Thursday evening, Scottish Developers present An Introduction to ASP.NET MVC at Microsoft’s offices at Waverley Gate (Waterloo Place, Edinburgh)

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