When security professionals flood Las Vegas for Black Hat and DefCon, they bring more than just their bags.
An Imperva study found that during the conferences, attack traffic spiked to 130 times the usual amount, as compared to typical days in the city. About 20 attacks normally originate from Las Vegas on a given day. During the two shows, however, there were about 1,387 attacks per day and at one point, the number peaked at 2,612 attacks.
Imperva's researchers noted that attacks also rose during a separate, non IT-related conference, which could indicate that conferences generally create attacks because of malware already on attendee's computers. Otherwise, attackers could be attending the shows and carrying out attacks from the site.
The attack rate returned to normal a day after the conferences.
