Episodes
Seth and Ken return with analysis of recent research that shows LLMs exploiting known CVEs. And no, it's not completely autonomous yet. This is followed by a breakdown of DataDog's State of DevSecOps article, backing up our gut feel of current industry needs and failures.
Published 04/23/24
Published 04/23/24
**Video may be required**: this episode is focused on demonstrating uses of LLMs against various code. As such, listeners may want to watch the stream to see these uses rather than just listening. Also, Seth and Ken talk briefly at the beginning of the episode about a new tldr;sec project (thanks Clint!) called awesome secure defaults that lists out useful libraries and projects that are secure by default.
Published 04/16/24
After a week of travel, Seth and Ken return to the podcast with a breakdown of their travel experiences at multiple conferences and teaching their first Practical Secure Code Review course using LLMs to enhance the methodology. This is followed by reinforcement of code review steps including library research, a discussion of the recent XZ backdoor, and an article reviewing LLM hallucinations when recommending libraries.
Published 04/09/24
When Ken is away, the geeks will play. Seth is joined by podcast regular Stefan Edwards (@lojikil) to catch up on his recent work around threat hunting. This progresses into a discussion on threat intelligence and what is available for applications. A recent blog post on the utility of the CVE system spurs thoughts on the usefulness of published CVEs. Finally, opinions fly on authorization issues and how simple misconfigurations result in the many vulnerabilities or attack chains.
Published 03/26/24
Ken and Seth are back to talk about the difference and competing priorities of Application and Enterprise Security. In short, recent news contends that Enterprise or Infrastructure security is lacking, whereas Application or Product Security is in a good state. This is followed by a discussion on supply chain security tools due to a recent analysis conducted by DoyenSec comparing false positives and negatives from the leading tools.
Published 03/19/24
Ken and Seth return for another episode, starting out with pointers on getting into security and finding a niche, all based on a recently released Microsoft project to introduce anyone to security. This is followed by a discussion on Chinese hacking groups and recent breaches among those groups. Finally, a discussion protecting the software supply chain due to recent forking and upload of malicious repositories on GitHub.
Published 03/12/24
Seth and Ken review the recent Whitehouse report on going back to the basics for software security and vulnerabilities. Specifically, how is the use of memory unsafe languages like C and C++ affecting the overall security of the internet landscape. This include a discussion on formal verification and crocs and socks of software testing. Finally, thoughts are shared on the recent use of Hugging Face and Github to host malicious code/packages and how this is a natural progression for popular...
Published 03/05/24
Podcast viewers will be familiar with Portswigger's annual list of Web Hacking Techniques. Ken and Seth take some time to digest the list and recommend reviewing not only the top 10, but also the nominations. A discussion on the use of LLM Agents as a dynamic scanning engine for identifying vulnerabilities. If you aren't already using an LLM to help speed up your AppSec, why not? Finally, a discussion on security statistics and how bad they are.
Published 02/20/24
Ken and Seth comment on their recent use of the same passwords across multiple organizations. Errr, or wait. That's administrators in some instances, according to recently published analysis from Lares. Will we ever get over passwords or are we doomed to repeat the past? In other news, GitHub Copilot may be (one of) the culprit(s) for the enshitification of code, based on a published paper from GitClear. Or it might just be that organizations and developers should have coding standards. Or...
Published 02/13/24
Seth and Ken return to the podcast to talk about fraud scammers based on a recent article from Cory Doctorow and what AppSec can do to protect their apps and themselves. Crocs and Socks. The use of deep fakes to scam corporations to transfer money. Finally, a discussion on sensitive data and why it happens in APIs due to the recent news that Spoutible exposed all sorts of tokens as reported by Troy Hunt.
Published 02/06/24
Ken and Seth start out with a lengthy discussion about application security jobs, training, and getting into the security space due to an article based on someone's experience moving from IT to pentesting. This is followed by possible needs for the NSA to collect commercially available browsing data. Finally, a quick hit on prompt injection and how things are moving quickly in the AI/LLM space.
Published 01/30/24
Seth and Ken are back after a weeks hiatus and start by demonstrating FlowMate, a newly released Burp Extension for building context of the parameters used by an application. This is followed by in-depth analysis of Reversing Lab's State of Software Supply Chain Security Report.
Published 01/23/24
Ken and Seth return to settle the age old question of whether false positives or false negatives are better when dealing with security tools. Tears are shed as stories of wasted efforts ring through on the podcasting airwaves. Maybe. Discussions on AI generated recommendations and how it _can_ be useful, but also turn out poorly. Finally, introductions on large scale vulnerability management at GitHub and how organizations struggle to fix issues identified through multiple streams.
Published 01/09/24
Seth and Ken kick off a new year talking about recent news, including improvements in security process for software supply chains. This is followed by security predictions for 2024, including LLMs, dynamic scanning, process, and other possibilities in the near future.
Published 01/02/24
David Trejo (@[email protected]) and Paul Kuliniewicz, security engineers at Chime join Seth (@sethlaw on x) and Ken (@cktricky) to discuss the ins and outs of challenges and successes in a widely recognized effective product security program. You can start reading up on the Monocle program here: https://medium.com/life-at-chime/monocle-how-chime-creates-a-proactive-security-engineering-culture-part-1-dedd3846127f And part 2 here:...
Published 12/19/23
Ken and Seth return to discuss current news. First up is a discussion about token leakage based on the recent discovery of AI tokens on Github and Cloud tokens on Hugging Face's repository. The struggles that package maintainers have with hosted data and secrets is an old problem that doesnt' have a good solution. A re-hash of the recent blogpost "Cybersecurity isn't Special" and how this also isn't a new idea.
Published 12/14/23
Ken and Seth decide whether the idea of security reviews are dead, spurred on by a recent blog post by Frank Wang on doing away with the current perception of reviews. This is followed by a walkthrough of the Splunk XSLT code and vulnerability for the PoC of CVE-2023-46214.
Published 12/05/23
We are excited to have Brian C Reed, chief mobility office at NowSecure, as a special guest on the Absolute AppSec podcast. Brian has specialized in mobile security, and his company NowSecure works to secure apps, train developers in safe mobile security engineering. As a piece of his work in mobile security, Brian has helped strengthen OWASP MASVS and ADA MASA standards. He also has experience in helping build go-to-market strategies or growth plans for a range of businesses. Be sure to tune...
Published 11/28/23
Jeevan Singh (@askjeevansingh) returns to join Ken Johnson (cktricky on Twitter) and Seth Law (sethlaw) as a guest on the podcast! Jeevan is currently with Rippling, was previously the Director of Product Security at Twilio, and before that Segment. He has been a long-time leader in security and development communities, and currently heads up the @owaspvancouver group. Tune in for ways to improve Threat Modeling, DevSecOps, and security programs in general.
Published 11/14/23
When cktricky is away, the lojis will play. Stefan Edwards co-hosts an episode with Seth in what ends up bypassing the AI hype to discuss the current state of OWASP. In short, things are murky but the organization is useful and the industry should support some version of its efforts. A discussion on privacy and training AI, based on recent articles and books about Clearview AI. Don't miss this Very Special Episode.
Published 11/07/23
Ken Johnson (cktricky) and Seth Law (@sethlaw) welcome Leif Dreizler back on the show! Leif recently became a Senior Manager of Software Engineering at Semgrep (semgrep.dev) , spent the better part of a decade working in product security and security software engineering at Twilio and Segment (segment.io). He also is a podcast co-host for the 404 Security Not Found podcast.
Published 10/23/23
Seth and Ken are back to review some recent news and community discussions. Specifically, the duo talks about the use of coding requirements and projects during interviews for application security. Both have had experience on both ends and have opinions. This is followed by reactions to the recent breach and data dumps from 23andMe. Finally, new AI tools are starting to emerge that will help security find and fix vulnerabilities.
Published 10/19/23
Erik Cabetas, founder and managing partner of Include Security joins Ken Johnson (@cktricky on twitter) and Seth Law (@sethlaw). Erik has been running Include Security for the last decade, and before that comes from a path that includes time working with early security teams at MicroSoft and Fortify Software, blue-team stints with financial groups as well as heading security for an eCommerce firm. Join us for a wide-ranging and expertly informed discussion of Application Security in many of...
Published 10/10/23
Seth and Ken are joined last minute by Jason Haddix (@jhaddix). Conversion about DEF CON talks, use of LLMs in research, and recently released tools.
Published 10/03/23