Salesforce Fires Red Team Staffers Who Gave Defcon Talk (zdnet.com)

Josh Schwartz, Salesforce's director of offensive security, and John Cramb, a senior offensive security engineer, have been fired by the company after they gave talk at the Defcon security conference talk in Las Vegas last month, reports ZDNet. Schwartz and Cramb were presenting the details of their tool, called Meatpistol, a "modular malware implant framework (PDF)" similar in intent to the Metasploit toolkit used by many penetration testers. The tool, "pitched as taking 'the boring work' out of pen-testing to make red teams, including at Salesforce, more efficient and effective", was anticipated to be released as open source at the time of the presentation, but Salesforce has held back the code. From the report: [...] The two were fired "as soon as they got off stage" by a senior Salesforce executive, according to one of several people who witnessed the firing and offered their accounts. The unnamed Salesforce executive is said to have sent a text message to the duo half an hour before they were expected on stage to not to give the talk, but the message wasn't seen until after the talk had ended. The talk had been months in the making. Salesforce executives were first made aware of the project in a February meeting, and they had signed off on the project, according to one person with knowledge of the meeting. The tool was expected to be released later as an open-source project, allowing other red teams to use the project in their own companies. But in another text message seen by Schwartz and Cramb an hour before their talk, the same Salesforce executive told the speakers that they should not announce the public release of the code, despite a publicized and widely anticipated release. Later, on stage, Schwartz told attendees that he would fight to get the tool published.

Comments

Unrealistic expectations

[Anonymous Coward]

The unnamed Salesforce executive is said to have sent a text message to the duo half an hour before they were expected on stage to not to give the talk, but the message wasn't seen until after the talk had ended.

If course it wasn't seen. You don't carry anything electronic at Defcon. That executive is an idiot.

Re:Unrealistic expectations

[zifn4b]

That executive is an idiot.

Aren't they all?

Of course not, they have mad visionary skills, they gots the gap performance evaluations and the stretch goals. You are all not l33t compared to them. You are too stupid to get it.

Re:Unrealistic expectations

[mysidia]

If course it wasn't seen. You don't carry anything electronic at Defcon. That executive is an idiot.

Agreed. Signing off on it by the executive is fait accomplit. Withdrawing permission the day of a conference is Not an option. The executive should be fired. Josh Schwartz and John Cramb should be reinstated AND publicly apologized to, AND each awarded a huge bonus for that bullshit.

Good luck

[Anonymous Coward]

Shitting on everyone at defcon and then firing your lead security engineers.

Re:Good luck

[Anonymous Coward]

I am pretty sure I have seen that exec walking around with "Massive security breach me" sign on his back.

Re:At-Will Employment

[Junta]

Well, at least around here, if I give them two weeks notice, then I'll give them two weeks of my time.

If they lay me off, they will give me 6 months of pay.

I don't mind being kicked out of the building, I care about my pay.

Donate to the EFF Folks

[bigdady92]

"Schwartz and Cramb are now being represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation."

All the more reason to send them your dollars so they can sue the shit out of Salesforce for their asstastical support of engineering.