Many people have a plan to make it through the robopocalypse (robot apocalypse), but in this talk we put these plans to the test. We start our discussion with a quick overview of physical and social abilities of current robots, mainly as a way to inform the people that haven’t taken the time to think what their life might be like if robots were to take over. We follow this by doing live demos of robot physical and social engineering attacks, and some of the defenses that we have employed to protect ourselves from these risks. By the end of this talk you can walk away with effective and practical defenses that you can use in your workspace and home today.
Brittany Postnikoff (@Straithe) is the robot maestro of the University of Waterloo Cryptography, Security and Privacy research group. During the day she keeps her research ethics board approved, but at night she can be found roving the streets of major urban centers with her pack of semi-autonomous social engineering robots. Outside of research she is president of a CTF Club, produces puzzles for CTF groups worldwide, and volunteers with infosec unlocked, C&P Village, and BSides conferences. Brittany has spoken about her life of robots at conferences such as BSidesLV, Troopers, Day-Con, BSidesWPG, and the International Conference on Robotics and Automation.