Application Security Weekly (audio)

Open source projects benefit from support that takes many shapes. Kat Cosgrove shares her experience across the Kubernetes project and the different ways people can make meaningful contributions to it. One of the underlying themes is that code is written for other people. That means PRs need to be understandable, discussions need to be enlightening, documentation needs to be clear, and collaboration needs to cross all sorts of boundaries. Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/asw for all the latest episodes! Show Notes: https://securityweekly.com/asw-361

The MCP standard gave rise to dreams of interconnected agents and nightmares of what those interconnected agents would do with unfettered access to APIs, data, and local systems. Aaron Parecki explains how OAuth's new Client ID Metadata Documents spec provides more security for MCPs and the reasons why the behavior and design of MCPs required a new spec like this. Segment resources: https://aaronparecki.com/2025/11/25/1/mcp-authorization-spec-update https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-ietf-oauth-client-id-metadata-document-00.html https://oauth.net/cross-app-access/ https://oauth.net/2/oauth-best-practice/ Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/asw for all the latest episodes! Show Notes: https://securityweekly.com/asw-360

For OT systems, uptime is paramount. That's a hard rule that makes maintaining, upgrading, and securing them a complex struggle. Tomas "Data" Owens and James Cotter discuss how Tennessee is tackling the organizational and technical challenges that come with hardening OT systems across the state. Those challenges range from old technology (like RS-232 over Wi-Fi!?) to limited budgets. They talk about the different domains where OT appears and provide some examples of how the next generation of builders and breakers can start learning about this space. Segment Resources: Free Cyber OT Training (INL): https://ics-training.inl.gov/ Free Cyber Hygiene Training (CISA): https://www.cisa.gov/cyber-hygiene-services Recommendations for network hardening (CISA): https://www.cisa.gov/shields-up More OT and ICS resources: https://github.com/biero-el-corridor/OTICSressource_list   Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/asw for all the latest episodes! Show Notes: https://securityweekly.com/asw-359

What are your favorite resources for secure code? Co-hosts John Kinsella and Kalyani Pawar talk about the reality of bringing security into a business. We talk about the role of the OWASP Top 10 and the OWASP ASVS in crafting security programs. And balance that with a discussion in what's the best use of everyone's time -- developers and appsec folks alike -- in crafting code that's secure by design rather than just secure from scanner results.   Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/asw for all the latest episodes! Show Notes: https://securityweekly.com/asw-358

Secure code should be grounded more in concepts like secure by default and secure by design than by "spot the vuln" thinking. Matias Madou shares his experience in secure coding training and the importance of teaching critical thinking. He also discusses why critical thinking is so closely related to threat modeling and how LLMs can be a tool for helping developers get beyond the superficial advice of, "Think like an attacker." Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/asw for all the latest episodes! Show Notes: https://securityweekly.com/asw-357

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 - 4p

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

In this must-see BlackHat 2025 interview, Doug White sits down with Michael Callahan, CMO at Salt Security, for a high-stakes conversation about Agentic AI, Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers, and the massive API security risks reshaping the cyber landscape. Broadcast live from the CyberRisk TV studio at Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas, the discussion pulls back the curtain on how autonomous AI agents and centralized MCP hubs could supercharge productivity—while also opening the door to unprecedented supply chain vulnerabilities. From “shadow MCP servers” to the concept of an “API fabric,” Michael explains why these threats are evolving faster than traditional security measures can keep up, and why CISOs need to act before it’s too late. Viewers will get rare insight into the parallels between MCP exploitation and DNS poisoning, the hidden dangers of API sprawl, and why this new era of AI-driven communication could become a hacker’s dream. Blog: https://salt.security/blog/when-ai-agents-go-rogue-what-youre-missing

The EU Cyber Resilience Act joins the long list of regulations intended to improve the security of software delivered to users. Emily Fox and Roman Zhukov share their experience education regulators on open source software and educating open source projects on security. They talk about creating a baseline for security that addresses technical items, maintaining projects, and supporting project owners so they can focus on their projects. Segment resources: github.com/ossf/wg-globalcyberpolicy github.com/orcwg baseline.openssf.org Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/asw for all the latest episodes! Show Notes: https://securityweekly.com/asw-345

A smaller attack surface should lead to a smaller list of CVEs to track, which in turn should lead to a smaller set of vulns that you should care about. But in practice, keeping something like a container image small has a lot of challenges in terms of what should be considered minimal. Neil Carpenter shares advice and anecdotes on what it takes to refine a container image and to change an org's expectations that every CVE needs to be fixed. Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/asw for all the latest episodes! Show Notes: https://securityweekly.com/asw-344

Open source software is a massive contribution that provides everything from foundational frameworks to tiny single-purpose libraries. We walk through the dimensions of trust and provenance in the software supply chain with Janet Worthington. And we discuss how even with new code generated by LLMs and new terms like slopsquatting, a lot of the most effective solutions are old techniques. Resources https://www.forrester.com/blogs/make-no-mistake-software-is-a-supply-chain-and-its-under-attack/ https://www.forrester.com/report/the-future-of-software-supply-chain-security/RES184050 Show Notes: https://securityweekly.com/asw-343

Maintaining code is a lot more than keeping dependencies up to date. It involved everything from keeping old code running to changing frameworks to even changing implementation languages. Jonathan Schneider talks about the engineering considerations of refactoring and rewriting code, why code maintenance is important to appsec, and how to build confidence that adding automation to a migration results in code that has the same workflows as before. Resources https://docs.openrewrite.org https://github.com/openrewrite Then, instead of our usual news segment, we do a deep dive on some recent vulns NVIDIA's Triton Inference Server disclosed by Trail of Bits' Will Vandevanter. Will talks about the thought process and tools that go into identify potential vulns, the analysis in determining whether they're exploitable, and the disclosure process with vendors. He makes the important point that even if something doesn't turn out to be a vuln, there's still benefit to the learning process and gaining experience in see