Hacking Techniques seminar at The American University in Dubai

This lecture, which was attended by a huge crowd of students and faculty, was given by Mr. Rashed Al Abbar, Regional Sales Manager at eHosting DataFort (DIC), who gave an overview of the various hacking techniques used today.

"The goal of this presentation was to encourage students to become "Ethical Hackers" as opposed to "Criminal Hackers". Instead of stealing information or damaging the system, ethical hackers would use the same tools used by criminal hackers to find security holes in the system and to secure them. These professionals are actually hired by governments and businesses today to continuously test their systems for vulnerability." said Dr Fadi Aloul, Assistant Professor of Computer Engineering at AUD.

Mr. Alabbar said that "With the exponential increase of the Internet use, and the shift of companies and institutes from being closed networks to being Internet-based, Computer Security has become a main concern to many. Hacking in particular is the leading threat in such an environment. To understand this risk, system administrators, developers, and even managers of Information Technology require the understanding of hacking, how it is done, and what techniques are employed to infiltrate systems and networks. We can say that: Knowledge of hacking is vital for protection."

Following the talk, a live hacking demo was presented by two Consultants from eHosting Datafort: Mr. Ibrahim Almallouhi (Security Team Leader) and Mohamed Sabah (Service Delivery Manager). The demo showed how a hacker can retrieve information about the computer by sending it legal commands.

AUD Computer Engineering Student Wissam Abueida said that "the good presentation skills and the exciting topic made the lecture a fruitful learning experience and an essential information resource. It was very exciting for us to meet Data Fort's hacking team leader, and an opportunity to learn about the methods we can employ to secure our own PCs, especially with the escalating number of hackers globally."

Bashar El Rawi, also from a Computer Engineering student said: "This presentation gave us a great opportunity to learn about the techniques that would protect computers from such attack. I hope that similar seminars will be held in the near future, especially since computers have come to occupy a significant part in our personal and professional lives."