Olivier Bilodeau, Director of Cybersecurity Research at GoSecure, and Masarah Paquet-Clouston, Security Researcher at GoSecure will discuss their four-year long investigation that started with analyzing an IoT botnet and led to discovering the structured industry that exists behind social media manipulation (SMM). SMM is the deliberate act of paying for popularity with followers or activity on social media.
From traffic fingerprinting to panel clustering and forum inquiries, the presenters will uncover the whole supply chain: malware suppliers, bulk resellers, panel software providers and hucksters. Different approaches to disrupt social media manipulation will also be discussed, giving practical insights for cybersecurity professionals, law enforcement agencies, and policy makers willing to curb this illicit industry.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Olivier Bilodeau
Olivier Bilodeau is leading the Cybersecurity Research team at GoSecure. With more than 10 years of infosec experience, he enjoys attracting malware in honeypots, writing tools for malware research, reverse-engineering all-the-things and vulnerability research. Passionate communicator, Olivier has spoken at several conferences like Black Hat Europe, Defcon, Botconf, SecTor, Derbycon, HackFest and many more. Invested in his community, he co-organizes MontréHack, a monthly workshop focused on applied information security, and NorthSec, Montreal's community conference and Capture-The-Flag.
Masarah Paquet-Clouston
Masarah Paquet-Clouston is a security researcher at GoSecure, a PhD student at Simon Fraser University in criminology and one of Canada's decorated 150 scientific innovators. With her background in economics and criminology, she specializes in the study of markets behind illicit online activities. She published in several peer-reviewed journals, such as Social Networks, Global Crime and the International Journal for the Study of Drug Policy, and presented at various international conferences including Virus Bulletin, Black Hat Europe, Botconf and the American Society of Criminology.