Ken and Seth return for 2025 to review the accuracy of their predictions from 2024 and make a few new ones for this new year. Some hits and misses for last year, but overall the generic predictions for both AI/LLM growth and software supply chain security were accurate. However, they were wrong in their assumptions around LLM creation and training. For 2025, predictions on AI billing models, software supply chain attacks, OWASP Top 10 2025, and more.

The dynamic duo is back for another holiday special. Not that they reference the holidays, but dig into complaints about security conferences and how to build a conference network. Followed by a discussion inspired by a recent TL;DRSec post from Maya Kaczorowski on "What Sucks about Security" where security leaders were asked that specific question. This leads into the question "What Sucks in AppSec?", so the co-hosts give their responses.

Seth and Ken are happy to announce that Clint Gibler (@clintgibler), the force behind TL;DRSec (tldrsec.com) and head of Security Research at Semgrep, will be coming on as a guest again on the Absolute AppSec podcast. The conversation starts with background on his experience with TL;DRSec and writing a newsletter. Followed up by an indepth discussion on secure defaults and how Semgrep and other tools help push security in organizations.

Join us for an episode of Absolute AppSec with Kinnaird McQuade, founder and CTO of NightVision. Kinnaird developed NightVision as a security testing tool that combines codebase analysis with DAST features. Before NightVision, Kinnaird worked as lead security engineer at both Square and Salesforce. Additionally he worked at Synopsys as Cloud Security Consulting Practice Lead. Be sure to tune into the episode as Ken Johnson and Seth Law interview Kinnaird McQuade to gain insights from his experiences and thoughts on improving security for applications and developers.

Seth (@sethlaw) and Ken (@cktricky) return for an in-depth discussion on penetration testing expectations, driven by recent posts and slack activity from Andrew Wilson. Essentially, certain clients expect that a single penetration test finds everything possible, whether or not those expectations are appropriate. The duo expounds on their experience with similar expectations and how its affected their respective careers and organizations. A followup on threat modeling and a new approach being coined as Attack Modeling.

Scott Norberg joins Ken Johnson and Seth Law for an episode of Absolute AppSec all about SAST. Scott is an ASP.NET Security Consultant, Author, Researcher and Speaker. In addition to running his Opperis Technologies consultancy, Scott has recently begun working as lead application security architect at CDW. Before that he worked as Lead Application Security engineer at Gallagher and was a Senior Consultant with the AppSec team at Coalfire. He has been a web security specialist for nearly two decades, and holds several certifications, including Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS), certifications for ASP.NET and SQL Server, and a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) and CCSP certification. He also has an MBA from Indiana University. To find out more about Scott check out his website https://scottnorberg.com/ as well as his 2020 book Advanced ASP NET Core Security Vulnerabilities.

Jeremy Long (@ctxt on social media), Principal Security Engineer at Service Now and project founder and lead for the OWASP Dependency Check project joins Ken Johnson (@cktricky) and Seth Law (@sethlaw). Jeremy spent a decade and a half as a lead application security engineer and principal engineer at Wells Fargo before joining ServiceNow. He has spent years developing processes for automated security analysis of software libraries and techniques for improving real-time application protection (RTAP) systems. Make sure to set time aside for a discussion on Jeremy's insights into improving security systems through dependency analysis and managing industry projects.

Ken and Seth return for Episode #263 and start with a discussion around web application fuzzing and the deficiencies of vulnerability and exploit-focused dynamic testing, a common thread in Seth's ranting. This is followed by a discussion on mobile testing and attempting to control security through client-side controls, spurred by an article that compares security in the McDonald's Android app to various banking apps. The final topic is around secrets management and use of the dotenv (.env) file for storing secrets.

Ariel Shin joins Ken Johnson (@cktricky on social media) and Seth Law (@sethlaw) for a special episode of Absolute AppSec. Ariel is currently a Security Engineering Manager at Datadog after a three-year stint at Twilio where she worked as an engineering manager in product security, a product security team lead, and a senior product security engineer. This year at Bsides SF 2024, she presented on her time at Twilio in a retrospective talk entitled “Six Years in Review: Transforming Company Culture to Embrace Risk.” The video from Bsides SF can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQE1OqCpeI8.

Before Twilio, Ariel worked at one medical as an appsec engineer as well as spending time as a Technology and Privacy consultant with Protiviti. She also helps build the professional appsec and prodsec communities as a frequent commenter and presenter at security conferences.

Ken (@cktricky) and Seth (@sethlaw) are back to review this weeks news and commiserate about industry happenings. First up are their thoughts on the current economic climate and how it has affected the security industry over the last 5 years. This is followed with evolving nature of password reset requirements as frequent changes are not recommended by NIST. The duo digs into possible motives for Checkmarx's recent announcement that they are funding ZAP. Finally, some thoughts on domain takeovers.