Application Security Weekly (Audio‪)‬ Security Weekly Productions

We look into the supply chain saga of the XZ Utils backdoor. It's a wild story of a carefully planned long con to add malicious code to a commonly used package that many SSH connections rely on. It hits themes from social engineering and abuse of trust to obscuring the changes and suppressing warnings. It also has a few lessons about software development, the social and economic dynamics of open source, and strategies for patching software.
It's an exciting topic partially because so much other appsec is boring. And that boring stuff is important to get right first. We also talk about what parts of this that orgs should be worried about and what types of threats they should be prioritizing instead.
Segment Resources:
https://tukaani.org/xz-backdoor/ https://news.risky.biz/risky-biz-news-supply-chain-attack-in-linuxland/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/this-backdoor-almost-infected-linux-everywhere-the-xz-utils-close-call/#ftag=RSSbaffb68 https://therecord.media/malicious-backdoor-code-linux-red-hat-cisa https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/alerts/2024/03/29/reported-supply-chain-compromise-affecting-xz-utils-data-compression-library-cve-2024-3094 https://duo.com/decipher/carefully-crafted-campaign-led-to-xz-utils-backdoor https://boehs.org/node/everything-i-know-about-the-xz-backdoor OWASP leaks resumes, defining different types of prompt injection, a secure design example in device-bound sessions, turning an ASVS requirement into practice, Ivanti has its 2000s-era Microsoft moment, HTTP/2 CONTINUATION flood, and more!
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Show Notes: https://securityweekly.com/asw-280

Sometimes infosec problems can be summarized succinctly, like "patching is hard". Sometimes a succinct summary sounds convincing, but is based on old data, irrelevant data, or made up data. Adrian Sanabria walks through some of the archeological work he's done to dig up the source of some myths. We talk about some of our favorite (as in most disliked) myths to point out how oversimplified slogans and oversimplified threat models lead to bad advice -- and why bad advice can make users less secure.
Segment resources:
https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/cybersecurity-myths-and/9780137929214/ The OWASP Top 10 gets its first update after a year, Metasploit gets its first rewrite (but it's still in Perl), PHP adds support for prepared statements, RSA Conference puts passwords on notice while patching remains hard, and more!
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Show Notes: https://securityweekly.com/asw-279

One of the biggest failures in appsec is an attitude that blames users for security problems. A lot of processes and workflows break down because of an insecure design or insecure defaults. Benedek Gagyi chats with us about the impact of the user experience (UX) on security and why it's not only important to understand how to make a user's life easier, but in defining who that user is in the first place.
Segment resources:
https://www.usenix.org/conference/8th-usenix-security-symposium/why-johnny-cant-encrypt-usability-evaluation-pgp-50 The GoFetch side channel in Apple CPUs, OpenSSF's plan for secure software developer education, fuzzing vs. formal verification as a security strategy, hard problems in InfoSec (and AppSec), and more!
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Show Notes: https://securityweekly.com/asw-278

Lots of companies need cybersecurity programs, as do non-profits. Tyler Von Moll talks about how to get small organizations started on security and how to prioritize initial investments. While an appsec program likely isn't going to be one of the first steps, it's going to be an early one. What decisions can you make at the start that will benefit the program in the years that follow? What does an appsec program look like at a small scale?
Segment Resources:
"Cybersecurity for Nonprofits", https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/18HuKtwgwGMtEJ87CgkMqHp1JDVRUXPP--zptjMpF0/edit?usp=sharing https://www.verizon.com/business/resources/reports/dbir/2023/master-guide/ Insecure defaults and insecure design in smart locks, FCC adopts Cyber Trust Mark labels for IoT devices, the ZAP project gets a new home, and more!
Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/asw for all the latest episodes!
Show Notes: https://securityweekly.com/asw-277

A majority of internet traffic now originates from APIs, and cybercriminals are taking advantage. Increasingly, APIs are used as a common attack vector because they’re a direct pathway to access sensitive data. In this discussion, Lebin Cheng shares what API attack trends Imperva, a Thales Company has observed over the past year, and what steps organizations can take to protect their APIs.
This segment is sponsored by Imperva. Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/imperva to learn more about them!
The trivial tweaks to bypass authentication in TeamCity, ArtPrompt attacks use ASCII art against LLMs, annoying developers with low quality vuln reports, removing dependencies as part of secure by design, removing overhead with secure by design, and more!
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Show Notes: https://securityweekly.com/asw-276

The need for vuln management programs has been around since the first bugs -- but lots of programs remain stuck in the past. We talk about the traps to avoid in VM programs, the easy-to-say yet hard-to-do foundations that VM programs need, and smarter ways to approach vulns based in modern app development. We also explore the ecosystem of acronyms around vulns and figure out what's useful (if anything) in CVSS, SSVC, EPSS, and more.
Segment resources:
https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/patch-management-needs-a-revolution-part-1 https://next.redhat.com/blog/ https://www.first.org/cvss/v4-0/ https://www.first.org/epss/ https://deadliestwebattacks.com/appsec/2010/02/19/primordial-cross-site-scripting-xss-exploits -- For a bit of history, one of the earliest "bugs bounty" from 1995. A SilverSAML example similar to the GoldenSAML attack technique, more about serializing AI models for Hugging Face, OWASP releases 1.0 of the IoT Security Testing Guide, the White House releases more encouragement to move to memory-safe languages, and more!
Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/asw for all the latest episodes!
Show Notes: https://securityweekly.com/asw-275