Application Security Weekly (Audio)

Just how bad can things get if someone clicks on a link? Rob Allen joins us again to talk about ransomware, why putting too much attention on clicking links misses the larger picture of effective defenses, and what orgs can do to prepare for an influx of holiday-infused ransomware targeting. Segment resources https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/how-a-ransomware-gang-encrypted-nevada-governments-systems/ https://www.darkreading.com/endpoint-security/pro-russian-hackers-linux-vms-hide-windows https://www.threatlocker.com/blog/how-to-build-a-robust-lights-out-checklist This segment is sponsored by ThreatLocker. Visit https://securityweekly.com/threatlocker to learn more about them! Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/asw for all the latest episodes! Show Notes: https://securityweekly.com/asw-356

Pull requests are a core part of collaboration, whether in open or closed source. GitHub has documented some of the security consequences of misconfiguring how PRs can trigger actions. But what happens when repo owners don't read the docs? Bar Kaduri and Roi Nisimi walk through their experience in reading docs, finding vulns, demonstrating exploits, and working with repo owners to improve their security. Their work highlights the challenges in maintaining good security guidance, figuring out secure defaults, and how so many orgs still struggle with triaging external security reports -- something that's becoming even more challenging when orgs are being flooded with low-quality reports from LLMs. Segment Resources: https://orca.security/resources/blog/pull-request-nightmare-github-actions-rce/ https://orca.security/resources/blog/pull-request-nightmare-part-2-exploits/ Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/asw for all the latest episodes! Show Notes: https://securityweekly.com/asw-355

The post quantum encryption migration is going to be a challenge, but how much of a challenge? There are several reasons why it is different from every other protocol and cypher iteration in the past. Is today's hardware up to the task? Is it just swapping out a library, or is there more to it? What is the extent of software, systems, and architecture that have to be updated or replaced to complete the migration? Can we get it all done by 2030? Sandy Carielli and Martha Bennett join us to answer these questions and dive into one area of tech that hasn't been discussed much when it comes to post-quantum encryption: blockchain. Relevant Forrester Reports: Quantum Computing isn't a Threat to Blockchains - Yet The Architect's Guide to Quantum Security In the news, high standards for open source software, trends in self-hosting, doing the cloud wrong, and is it really always DNS? Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/asw for all the latest episodes! Show Notes: https://securityweekly.com/asw-354

Ransomware attacks typically don't care about memory safety and dependency scanning, they often target old, unpatched vulns and too often they succeed. Rob Allen shares some of the biggest cases he's seen, what they have in common, and what appsec teams could do better to help them. Too much software still requires custom configuration to make it more secure. And too few software makers are embracing secure by default, let alone secure by design. In the news, passively monitoring geosynchronous satellite communications on the cheap, successful LLM poisoning of any size model with a single size dose, security engineering lessons from Signal's post-quantum crypto work, improving security for JavaScript in the browser, and more! This segment is sponsored by ThreatLocker. Visit https://securityweekly.com/threatlocker to learn more! Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/asw for all the latest episodes! Show Notes: https://securityweekly.com/asw-353

Interest and participation in the OWASP GenAI Security Project has exploded over the last two years. Steve Wilson explains why it was important for the project to grow beyond just a Top Ten list and address more audiences than just developers. He also talks about how the growth of AI Agents influences the areas that appsec teams need to focus on. Whether apps are created by genAI or directly use genAI, the future of securing software is going to be busy. Resources https://genai.owasp.org https://genai.owasp.org/llm-top-10/ LLM security book on Amazon at https://a.co/d/6LZoXxQ This segment is sponsored by The OWASP GenAI Security Project. Visit https://securityweekly.com/owasp to learn more! Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/asw for all the latest episodes! Show Notes: https://securityweekly.com/asw-352

Software has forever had flaws and humans have forever been finding and fixing them. With LLMs generating code, appsec has also been trying to determine how well LLMs can find flaws. Nico Waisman talks about XBOW's LLM-based pentesting, how it climbed a bug bounty leaderboard, how it uses feedback loops for better pentests, and how they handle (and even welcome!) hallucinations. In the news, using LLMs to find flaws, directory traversal in an MCP, another resource for learning cloud and AI security, spreadsheets and appsec, and more! Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/asw for all the latest episodes! Show Notes: https://securityweekly.com/asw-351

Dealing with vulns tends to be a discussion about prioritization. After all, there a tons of CVEs and dependencies with known vulns. It's important to figure out how to present developers with useful vuln info that doesn't overwhelm them. Francesco Cipollone shares how to redirect that discussion to focus on remediation and how to incorporate LLMs into this process without losing your focus or losing your budget. In the news, supply chain security in Ruby and Rust, protecting package repositories, refining CodeQL queries for security, refactoring and Rust, an OWASP survey, and more! Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/asw for all the latest episodes! Show Notes: https://securityweekly.com/asw-350

In the news, Microsoft encounters a new cascade of avoidable errors with Entra ID, Apple improves iOS with hardware-backed memory safety, DeepSeek demonstrates the difficulty in reviewing models, curl reduces risk by eliminating code, preserving the context of code reviews, and more! Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/asw for all the latest episodes! Show Notes: https://securityweekly.com/asw-349

This week, we chat with Scott Clinton, board member and co-chain of the OWASP GenAI Security Project. This project has become a massive organization within OWASP with hundreds of volunteers and thousands of contributors. This team has been cranking out new tools, reports and guidance for practitioners month after month for over a year now. We start off discussing how Scott and other leaders have managed to keep up with the crazy rate of change in the AI world. We pivot to discussing some of the specific projects the team is working on, and finally discuss some of the biggest AI security challenges before wrapping up the conversation. If you're neck-deep in AI like we are, I highly recommend checking out this conversation, and consider joining this OWASP project, sponsoring them, or just checking out what they have to offer (which is all free, of course). Segment Resources: Get started with the OWASP GenAI Security Project Register for the GenAI Application Security & Risk Summit on October 9th, 11am - 4pm EST This segment is sponsored by The OWASP GenAI Security Project. Visit https://securityweekly.com/owasp to learn more about them! Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/asw for all the latest episodes! Show Notes: https://securityweekly.com/asw-348

Up first, the ASW news of the week. At Black Hat 2025, Doug White interviews Ted Shorter, CTO of Keyfactor, about the quantum revolution already knocking on cybersecurity's door. They discuss the terrifying reality of quantum computing's power to break RSA and ECC encryption—the very foundations of modern digital life. With 2030 set as the deadline for transitioning away from legacy crypto, organizations face a race against time. Ted breaks down what "full crypto visibility" really means, why it's crucial to map your cryptographic assets now, and how legacy tech—from robotic sawmills to outdated hospital gear—poses serious risks. The interview explores NIST's new post-quantum algorithms, global readiness efforts, and how Keyfactor's acquisitions of InfoSec Global and Cipher Insights help companies start the quantum transition today—not tomorrow. Don't wait for the breach. Watch this and start your quantum strategy now. If digital trust is the goal, cryptography is the foundation. Segment Resources: http://www.keyfactor.com/digital-trust-digest-quantum-readiness https://www.keyfactor.com/press-releases/keyfactor-acquires-infosec-global-and-cipherinsights/ For more information about Keyfactor's latest Digital Trust Digest, please visit: https://securityweekly.com/keyfactorbh Live from BlackHat 2025 in Las Vegas, cybersecurity host Jackie McGuire sits down with Seemant Sehgal, founder of BreachLock, to unpack one of the most pressing challenges facing SOC teams today: alert fatigue—and its even more dangerous cousin, vulnerability fatigue. In this must-watch conversation, Seemant reveals how his groundbreaking approach, Adversarial Exposure Validation (AEV), flips the script on traditional defense-heavy security strategies. Instead of drowning in 10,000+ "critical" alerts, AEV pinpoints what actually matters—using Generative AI to map realistic attack paths, visualize kill chains, and identify the exact vulnerabilities that put an organization's crown jewels at risk. From his days leading cybersecurity at a major global bank to pioneering near real-time CVE validation, Seemant shares insights on scaling offensive security, improving executive buy-in, and balancing automation with human expertise. Whether you're a CISO, SOC analyst, red teamer, or security enthusiast, this interview delivers actionable strategies to fight fatigue, prioritize risks, and protect high-value assets. Key topics covered: - The truth about alert fatigue & why it's crippling SOC efficiency - How AI-driven offensive security changes the game - Visualizing kill chains to drive faster remediation - Why fixing "what matters" beats fixing "everything" - The future of AI trust, transparency, and control in cybersecurity Watch now to discover how BreachLock is redefining offensive security for the AI era. Segment Resources: https://www.breachlock.com/products/adversarial-exposure-validation/ This segment is sponsored by Breachlock. Visit https://securityweekly.com/breachlockbh to learn more about them! Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/asw for all the latest episodes! Show Notes: https://securityweekly.com/asw-347