Just a quick update on the Linux Security Summit North America (LSS-NA) for 2020.

The event will take place over two days as an online event, due to COVID-19.  The dates are now July 1-2, and the full schedule details may be found here.

The main talks are:

• Mitigating (Some) Use-after-frees in the Linux Kernel – Jann Horn
• Control Flow Integrity in the Linux Kernel – Kees Cook
• KRSI (BPF + LSM) – Updates and Progress – KP Singh
• Integrity Policy Enforcement: Full System Integrity Verification – Deven Bowers
• 10 Years of Linux Security – A Report Card – Bradley Spengler
• Automatically Securing Linux Application Containers in Untrusted Clouds – Anjo Vahldiek-Oberwagner & Dmitrii Kuvaiskio

There are also short (30 minute) topics:

• SELint – An SELinux Policy Static Analysis Tool – Daniel Burgener
• Encrypting Memory at Scale – Derek Chamorro & Brian Bassett

This year we will also have a Q&A panel at the end of each day, moderated by Elena Reshetova. The panel speakers are:

• Nayna Jain
• Andrew Lutomirski
• Dmitry Vyukov
• Emily Ratliff
• Alexander Popov
• Christian Brauner
• Allison Marie Naaktgeboren
• Kees Cook
• Mimi Zohar

LSS-NA this year is included with OSS+ELC registration, which is USD $50 all up.  Register here.

Hope to see you soon!

The CFP for the 2020 Linux Security Summit North America is currently open, and closes on March 31st.

The CFP details are here: https://events.linuxfoundation.org/linux-security-summit-north-america/program/cfp/

You can register as an attendee here: https://events.linuxfoundation.org/linux-security-summit-north-america/register/

Note that the conference this year has moved from August to June (24-26).  The location is Austin, TX, and we are co-located with the Open Source Summit as usual.

We’ll be holding a 3-day event again, after the success of last year’s expansion, which provides time for tutorials and ad-hoc break out sessions.  Please note that if you intend to submit a tutorial, you should be a core developer of the project or otherwise recognized leader in the field, per this guidance from the CFP:

Tutorial sessions should be focused on advanced Linux security defense topics within areas such as the kernel, compiler, and security-related libraries.  Priority will be given to tutorials created for this conference, and those where the presenter is a leading subject matter expert on the topic.

This will be the 10th anniversary of the Linux Security Summit, which was first held in 2010 in Boston as a one day event.

Get your proposals for 2020 in soon!

LSS-NA for 2019 was held in August in San Diego.  Slides are available at the Schedule, and videos of the talks may now be found in this playlist.

LWN covered the following presentations:

• Kernel Runtime Security Instrumentation
• Making Containers Safer

The new 3-day format (as previously discussed) worked well, and we’re expecting to continue this next year for LSS-NA.

Details on the 2020 event will be announced soon!

Announcements may be found on the event twitter account @LinuxSecSummit, on the linux-security-module mailing list, and via this very blog.

The schedule for the 2019 Linux Security Summit North America (LSS-NA) is published.

This year, there are some changes to the format of LSS-NA. The summit runs for three days instead of two, which allows us to relax the schedule somewhat while also adding new session types.  In addition to refereed talks, short topics, BoF sessions, and subsystem updates, there are now also tutorials (one each day), unconference sessions, and lightning talks.

The tutorial sessions are:

• The How and Why of libseccomp, by Paul Moore (Cisco) and Tom Hromatka (Oracle);
• Complete Platform Attestation, by Monty Wiseman and Avani Dave (General Electric); and
  
• How to Write a Linux Security Module, by Casey Schaufler (Intel), Paul Moore (Cisco), and John Johansen (Canonical).

These tutorials will be 90 minutes in length, and they’ll run in parallel with unconference sessions on the first two days (when the space is available at the venue).

The refereed presentations and short topics cover a range of Linux security topics including platform boot security, integrity, container security, kernel self protection, fuzzing, and eBPF+LSM.

Some of the talks I’m personally excited about include:

• TrenchBoot – How to Nicely Boot System with Intel TXT and AMD SVM, by Daniel Kiper (Oracle) and Daniel Smith (Apertus);
• Kernel Runtime Security Instrumentation, by KP Singh (Google);
• Writing Linux Kernel Modules in Safe Rust, by Geoffrey Thomas (Two Sigma) and Alex Gaynor (Alloy); and
  
• Retrospective: 26 Years of Flexible MAC, keynote by Stephen Smalley (NSA).
  

The schedule last year was pretty crammed, so with the addition of the third day we’ve been able to avoid starting early, and we’ve also added five minute transitions between talks. We’re hoping to maximize collaboration via the more relaxed schedule and the addition of more types of sessions (unconference, tutorials, lightning talks).  This is not a conference for simply consuming talks, but to also participate and to get things done (or started).

Thank you to all who submitted proposals.  As usual, we had many more submissions than can be accommodated in the available time.

Also thanks to the program committee, who spent considerable time reviewing and discussing proposals, and working out the details of the schedule. The committee for 2019 is:

The LSS North America 2019 CFP is currently open, and you have until May 31st to submit your proposal. (That’s the end of next week!)

If you’re planning on attending LSS NA in San Diego, note that the Early Bird registration for Open Source Summit (which we’re co-located with) ends today.

You can of course just register for LSS on its own, here.

There will be two Linux Security Summit (LSS) events again this year:

• LSS North America
  • San Diego, CA. August 19-21 (increased to three days!)
• LSS Europe
  • Lyon, France. October 31 – November 1.

Stay tuned for CFP announcements!

Slides may be found here, while videos of all talks are available via this youtube playlist.

The 2018 Linux Security Summit North America (LSS-NA) was held last month in Vancouver, BC.

Attendance continued to grow this year, with a record of 220+ attendees.  Our room was upgraded as a result, with spectacular views.

Linux Security Summit NA 2018, Vancouver,BC

We also had many great proposals and the schedule ended up being a very tight fit.  We’ve asked for an extra day for LSS-NA next year — here’s hoping.

Slides of all presentations are available here: https://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/linux-security-summit-north-america-2018/program/slides/

Videos may be found in this youtube playlist.

Once again, as is typical, the conference was focused around development, somewhat uniquely in the world of security conferences.  It’s interesting to see more attention seemingly being paid to the lower parts of the stack: secure booting, firmware, and hardware roots of trust, as well as the continued efforts in hardening the kernel.

LWN provided some excellent coverage of LSS-NA:

• C Considered Dangerous
• Life Beyond the Tinfoil Curtain
• Trying to get STACKLEAK into the Kernel

Paul Moore has a brief writeup here.

Thanks to everyone involved in the event for 2018: the speakers, attendees, the program committee, the sponsors, and the organizing team at the Linux Foundation.  LSS-NA would not be possible without all of you!

This is a reminder for folks attending OSS Japan this week that I’ll be leading a  Linux Security BoF session  on Wednesday at 6pm.

If you’ve been working on a Linux security project, feel welcome to discuss it with the group.  We will have a whiteboard and projector.   This is also a good opportunity to raise topics for discussion, and to ask questions about Linux security.

See you then!