Last June 8, 2015, I presented a paper entitled “Detecting Command and Control Traffic Using Botnet Correlator Module” in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The paper was a product of a project in APC together with my students in INFOSEC. The trip was entirely sponsored by the school (thank you so much!) and the experience was very unforgettable.

Going to Kuala Lumpur

I rode a Cebu Pacific plane going to Malaysia last Jun 7 in NAIA Terminal 3. As usual, the airport was jampacked with people. The flight was around 4 hours long and arrived at the KLIA2. I then rode an express train (20-minute train) going to the downtown KL.

I met my former officemate in the Philippines who is already working in KL. He toured me around KL (Petronas, Jalon Alor) and brought me to the hotel, Melia Hotel.

Conference Day

It’s a good thing that the school booked in the hotel where the conference will be held. The parallel sessions started at 8am. It was my first time to present in an international conference and I was very nervous. The presenters were mostly Muslims coming from Malaysia, Indonesia, India other neighboring countries. The participants were very friendly and excited too. I met 2 other professors from the Philippines, Terry from UP-Diliman and Marylene from MUST in Mindanao.

I attended and listened to the keynote presentation of Dr. Rozhan Mohammed Idrus who discussed about “IT Education and Its Impact to the Society.” He coined the term, “technogogy” which means blending in of technology to the teaching pedagogy. In essence, Dr. Idrus pointed out that teachers and the curriculum must be able to adapt with the technological advances in today’s world.

My presentation was scheduled in the afternoon. The paper is an applied research on how to detect Botnet traffic in a Local Area Network (LAN) using Snort and aggregated reputable Botnet sources.

The presentation lasted for 10 minutes. The PDF presentation can be found in this link: BCM_Presentation.

I went to fetch my girl friend in Pavillion Mall and ate dinner there. We rode Uber going to another mall outside KL called Publika.

Last day in KL, walking around the city

Our third and last day in Malaysia was spent in touring around the city by foot. We went to Mydin, where wholesale products are sold. We bought a lot of Cadburry and other chocolates.The place was not very classy thought. We walked to Low Yat, a technology/gadgets mall. We then walked to the KLCC area and visited Kinokuniya. We checked out then rode Uber to the train station going to KLIA2.

Over-all experience

I heard a lot of negative stories in Malaysia (dangerous at night, a lot of street clubs, ill-mannered taxi drivers, snatchers riding motorcycles etc.) but I haven’t experienced those stories. Maybe they have already changed? Or I’m just used to living with a similar environment in the Philippines? I don’t know. The experience was great. Their express train is very convenient and spacious. The establishments offer items both expensive and cheap depending on your budget.

Since I did not want to experience the horror stories in the taxi, I always used Uber for the transpo around the area. Malaysia has more Uber cars compared to the Philippines.

In terms of value for money, I can say your money has a big value in their country.