Umair Nehri
Principal Security Operations and Automation Engineer
spiderSilk
Umair Nehri is a security researcher based in India. He currently helps secure major private and government players across the Middle East. He has spoken at several BlackHat events in the past and has developed tools such as BucketLoot and Genzai.
Speaker sessions
Breaking the Mesh: Intercepting and Disrupting Off Grid Communications
As communications technology continues to evolve, the need to communicate without relying on traditional cellularor internet infrastructure is growing. Off-grid communication systems are increasingly being adopted in scenariosranging from protests and civil unrest to emergency response, privacy-focused communications, and hobbyistexperimentation. At the same time, these technologies can introduce new challenges for security teams andgovernments when they are used to coordinate activities that may pose a threat to individuals, organizations, orcritical infrastructure.This explores the security landscape of modern off-grid communications, with a particular focus on mesh-basednetworks and technologies such as Meshtastic. The session will provide an accessible overview of how thesenetworks operate, how devices discover and communicate with one another, and where their security assumptionscan break down.The talk will then move from theory to practical research, examining techniques for identifying and mapping meshdeployments, understanding what information can be observed from the radio environment, and exploring theconditions under which mesh communications can be intercepted, manipulated, or disrupted.Finally, the session will discuss research into mapping mesh-enabled devices and deployments around criticallocations across the world, highlighting what the growing adoption of decentralized communications means fordefenders, researchers, and organizations responsible for protecting sensitive environments.Attendees will leave with a better understanding of the capabilities, limitations, and security implications of therapidly expanding off-grid communications ecosystem.
- 17:10
- Thu
- 03 Dec
Stage:
Briefing Stage 2
Sessions Type:
Keynote