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Episode 319 covers a range of industry developments, primarily focusing on the recent Vercel security incident and the evolving landscape of AI-driven compliance. The hosts detail how a Vercel employee's use of a consumer-level Context AI plan led to a workspace compromise via a leaked OAuth token, eventually allowing attackers to access sensitive environment variables. This leads to a critical discussion about the SOC 2 provider Delve, with the hosts addressing allegations regarding "fake" compliance automation and the general limitations of auditing frameworks that do not inherently equate to true security. This episode also explores the future of the Pull Request (PR) flow, debating whether traditional human-led code reviews are "dead" due to the massive volume of code generated by AI agents. While they acknowledge that startups are moving toward autonomous commits, Seth argues that the PR concept is evolving into a system of agentic attestation and guardrails rather than disappearing entirely. The episode concludes with community survey results on this shift and a reminder about the hosts' upcoming training sessions in Singapore.

Episode 318 examines critical vulnerabilities and the evolving impact of AI on the security industry. The episode details a recent sophisticated impersonation and malware attack targeting open-source Slack communities, including their own, where attackers spoofed Seth's identity to distribute malicious links via Google Sites. The hosts express significant frustration with Slack's lack of built-in impersonation controls, comparing the flaw to the inherent trust issues in the Git protocol. A major portion of the discussion focuses on the "leak" of Anthropic's highly capable Mythos model and its potential to disrupt the market. They analyze how such frontier model announcements contribute to massive stock market volatility for traditional security firms while simultaneously creating an "intense echo chamber" regarding AI's ability to replace human practitioners. Referencing Thomas Ptacek's thesis, they debate whether AI agents will soon supplant human vulnerability research for common bug classes, shifting the human role toward high-level governance and "context infusion". Ultimately, the hosts advocate for autonomous defense and rigorous evaluation frameworks to manage "reasoning drift" and the exploding velocity of AI-generated code.

Ken Johnson and Seth Law reflect on the 2026 RSA Conference and BSidesSF, noting an industry-wide "awakening" regarding the high costs and engineering complexities of operationalizing AI security tools. A major focus is the recent "supply chain attack hell," specifically the compromise of the Axios HTTP client through dual-account breaches that allowed attackers to bypass legitimate OIDC deploy setups via a misconfigured NPM CLI. The malware used was particularly evasive, deleting itself and replacing its package.json with a clean version post-execution. The hosts also discuss the emergence of the "Agentic Development Lifecycle" (ADLC), where engineering teams are increasingly "committing on time" rather than features, creating a volume of code that traditional security gates cannot manage. They debate Thomas Ptacek’s thesis that AI agents will soon "supplant" human vulnerability research for common bug classes, shifting the human role toward high-level governance and "context infusion". Economically, they highlight how Anthropic's security announcements contributed to nearly half a trillion dollars in market value loss for traditional security firms, as investors increasingly bet on frontier models to consume established security domains.

In episode 316 of Absolute AppSec, hosts Ken Johnson and Seth Law participate in a crossover with Kurt Hendle and Cameron Walters from the Coffee, Chaos, and ProdSec podcast to discuss the radical transformation of security roles in an AI-driven landscape. The guests share origin stories rooted in gaming and "mischievous" curiosity, which evolved into deep careers in security architecture and engineering. The primary discussion centers on the industry's shift toward an "Agentic Development Lifecycle" (ADLC), where the sheer volume of AI-generated code renders traditional manual review gates obsolete. This acceleration risks a "rubber stamp" culture where developers approve fixes in seconds rather than minutes, potentially leading to a mountain of technical debt. Consequently, the role of security is shifting from manual bug finding to high-level governance and "context infusion," requiring practitioners to manage AI agents that automate complex tasks. Economically, the group highlights how frontier model announcements have caused massive market volatility, wiping billions from traditional security stocks. Ultimately, they conclude that while older "primitive" tools are failing, professionals who lean into AI as a "superpower" for governance and oversight will be essential for navigating this new, non-deterministic reality.

In episode 315 of Absolute AppSec, Ken Johnson and Seth Law discuss the rapidly evolving challenges of securing software in an era of AI-assisted development. The hosts provide updates on their "Harnessing LLMs for Application Security" training, noting that the field is changing so fast that they must constantly update their exercises to include new agents and advanced tools like Claude Code. A primary concern raised is the "naivete" of many new security tools, where prompts are often automatically generated by AI rather than expertly crafted, causing a loss of essential nuance. The hosts also warn against AI companies building security products without specialized expertise, citing a zero-click exploit in the "Comet" AI browser that could exfiltrate sensitive secrets via calendar summaries. As development teams now ship code at "AI speed," the hosts argue that traditional AppSec methods are too slow, necessitating a strategic pivot toward automated design reviews, governance, and observability rather than just chasing individual vulnerabilities. Despite the inherent risks and the ongoing difficulty of managing AI reasoning drift, they remain optimistic that these tools can eventually unlock more efficient, hands-off AppSec workflows if managed with proper guardrails and deterministic oversight.

In this episode, the hosts discuss the seismic shift in the application security landscape triggered by the rise of Large Language Models (LLMs) and Anthropic’s "Claude Code". They highlight the massive economic repercussions of these AI advancements, noting that billions in market value were wiped from traditional cybersecurity stocks as investors begin to believe frontier models might eventually write perfectly secure code. The hosts critique the industry's historical reliance on "checkbox" compliance tools like SAST, DAST, and SCA, arguing that these "archaic" methods are being replaced by AI-native strategies capable of reasoning through complex logic flaws. While they acknowledge that AI can suffer from "reasoning drift" and still requires deterministic validation to avoid false positives, they emphasize that security professionals must adapt by building custom "skills" and focusing on governance and observability. The discussion concludes that as developers move to "AI speed," the traditional role of the AppSec professional is evolving into a "Jarvis-like" orchestrator who manages automated workflows and infuses institutional knowledge into AI agents to maintain oversight without slowing down production.

Ken Johnson and Seth Law examine the intensifying pressure on security practitioners as AI-driven development causes an unprecedented acceleration in industry velocity. A primary theme is the emergence of "shadow AI," where developers utilize unauthorized AI coding assistants and personal agents, introducing significant data classification risks and supply chain vulnerabilities. The discussion dives into technical concepts like AI agent "skills"—markdown files providing specialized directions—and the corresponding security risks found in new skill registries, such as malicious tools designed to exfiltrate credentials and crypto assets. The hosts also review 1Password’s SCAM (Security Comprehension Awareness Measure), highlighting broad performance gaps in an AI's ability to detect phishing, with some models failing up to 65% of the time. To manage these unpredictable systems, the hosts advocate for a shift toward high-level validation roles, emphasizing the need for Subject Matter Expertise to combat "reasoning drift" and maintain safety through test-driven development and periodic "checkpoints". Ultimately, they conclude that while AI can simulate expertise, human oversight remains vital to secure the probabilistic nature of modern agentic workflows.

In episode 312 of Absolute AppSec, the hosts discuss the double-edged sword of "vibe coding", noting that while AI agents often write better functional tests than humans, they frequently struggle with nuanced authorization patterns and inherit "upkeep costs" as foundational models change behavior over time. A central theme of the episode is that the greatest security risk to an organization is not AI itself, but an exhausted security team. The hosts explore how burnout often manifests as "silent withdrawal" and emphasize that managers must proactively draw out these issues within organizations that often treat security as a mere cost center. Additionally, they review new defensive strategies, such as TrapSec, a framework for deploying canary API endpoints to detect malicious scanning. They also highlight the value of security scorecarding—pioneered by companies like Netflix and GitHub—as a maturity activity that provides a holistic, blame-free view of application health by aggregating multiple metrics. The episode concludes with a reminder that technical tools like Semgrep remain essential for efficiency, even as practitioners increasingly leverage the probabilistic creativity of LLMs.

Ken Johnson and Seth Law examine the profound transformation of the security industry as AI tooling moves from simple generative models to sophisticated agentic architectures. A primary theme is the dramatic surge in development velocity, with some organizations seeing pull request volumes increase by over 800% as developers allow AI agents to operate nearly hands-off. This shift is redefining the role of Application Security practitioners, moving experts from manual tasks like manipulating Burp Suite requests to a validation-centric role where they spot-check complex findings generated by AI in minutes. The hosts characterize older security tools as "primitive" compared to modern AI analysis, which can now identify human-level flaws like complex authorization bypasses. A major technical highlight is the introduction of agent "skills"—markdown files containing instructions that empower coding assistants—and the associated emergence of new supply chain risks. They specifically reference research on malicious skills designed to exfiltrate crypto wallets and SSH credentials, warning that registries for these skills lack adequate security responses. To manage the inherent "reasoning drift" of AI, the hosts argue that test-driven development has become a critical safety requirement. Ultimately, they warn that the industry has already shifted fundamentally, and security professionals must lean into these new technologies immediately to avoid becoming obsolete in a day-to-day evolving landscape.

In this episode of Absolute AppSec, hosts Ken Johnson and Seth Law interview Mohan Kumar and Naveen K Mahavisnu, the practitioner-founders of Aira Security, to explore the critical challenges of securing autonomous AI agents in 2026. The conversation centers on the industry's shift toward "agentic workflows," where AI is delegated complex tasks that require monitoring not just for access control, but for the underlying "intent" of the agent's actions. The founders explain that agents can experience "reasoning drift," taking dangerous or unintended shortcuts to complete missions, which necessitates advanced guardrails like "trajectory analysis" and human-in-the-loop interventions to ensure safety and data integrity. A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to the security of the Model Context Protocol (MCP), highlighting how these integration servers can be vulnerable to "shadowing attacks" and indirect prompt injections—exemplified by a real-world case where private code was exfiltrated via a public GitHub pull request. To address these gaps, the guests introduce their open-source tool, MCP Checkpoint, which allows developers to baseline their agentic configurations and detect malicious changes in third-party tooling. Throughout the discussion, the group emphasizes that as AI moves into production, security must evolve into a proactive enablement layer that understands the probabilistic and unpredictable nature of LLM reasoning.

In this episode of Absolute AppSec, Nathan Hunstad, Director of Security at Vanta, discusses the intersection of security policy, governance, and technical defense. Drawing on his unique background in political science and the Minnesota state legislature, Hunstad argues that policy acts as the essential "conductor" for an organization's security tools. A major theme of the conversation is the challenge of compliance for startups, with the group advising founders to prioritize business survival and basic security hygiene—like password managers and IAM—before pursuing intensive certifications like SOC 2. The discussion also explores how AI is accelerating both development velocity and the ability to automate tedious security questionnaires. Furthermore, Hunstad contrasts the security posture of modern, cloud-native startups against legacy enterprises, noting that older organizations often struggle with "dark corners" of un-inventoried, vulnerable legacy tech. The episode concludes with a critique of outdated authentication standards, specifically advocating for the removal of mandatory password rotation in favor of NIST-aligned, phishing-resistant MFA.

Ken Johnson (cktricky on social media) and Seth Law are happy to announce a special episode of Absolute AppSec with Avi Douglen (sec_tigger on X), long-time OWASP Global Board of Directors member, founder and CEO of Bounce Security and co-author of the Threat Modeling Manifesto. The conversation ranges from Application Privacy related to Application Security, to participating in meetups and conferences, and finally OWASP as an Avi's experience as a board member.

In episode 307 of Absolute AppSec, hosts Ken and Seth conduct a retrospective on the application security landscape of 2025. They conclude that their previous predictions were largely accurate, particularly regarding the rise of prompt injection, AI-backed attacks, and the industry-wide shift toward per-token billing models. A major theme of the year was the solidification of supply chain security as a critical pillar of AppSec, driven by notable incidents such as Shai Hulud and React for Shell. The hosts also share insights from their four-day training course on utilizing LLMs for secure code review, noting that while AI development is becoming more prevalent, most practitioners are still in the nascent stages of building custom tooling. Much of the discussion focuses on the Model Context Protocol (MCP); while it offers significant value for agentic workflows, the hosts criticize its current lack of robust security controls, specifically highlighting issues with OAuth implementations and short timeouts in existing clients. Finally, they discuss how the industry is moving toward a more nuanced balance between deterministic tools like Semgrep and the probabilistic creativity of LLMs to increase efficiency in security consulting.

Given the spate of recent npm news stories, we've arranged a topical show with software supply-chain security researcher and npm hacker Paul McCarty (find Paul on bsky https://bsky.app/profile/6mile.githax.com) . Paul is currently a researcher with Safety (https://getsafety.com/) and has a background in security including work at John Deere, Boeing, Regence Blue Cross/Blue Shield, NASA Jet Propulsion Lab, the US Army, and the Queensland Government. He's also spent twenty some odd years helping startups with security practices, and is a maintainer of the Open Source Malware project. In addition, Paul has been long time friend of the show, contributing his insights to the Absolute AppSec community slack in addition to frequently writing up his research at the SourceCode RED blog: https://sourcecodered.com/blog.

The latest episode of Absolute AppSec is here, with Ken Johnson and Seth Law checking in during the busy Q4 holiday season to share some fascinating insights on the evolving landscape of security and technology. They kick off by reflecting on their intensive, ever-changing "Harnessing LLMs for Application Security" courses, noting how rapidly the underlying tech evolves. The conversation quickly turns to a compelling debate: How will the rise of generative AI impact career paths for newcomers, especially given that LLMs fundamentally rely on the contributions of existing experts? While pathways may change, they agree that core human activities—like networking, contributing to projects, and maintaining a hacker mindset—will remain crucial. The hosts then dive into a fascinating discussion on the darker side of SEO, introducing the concept of Generative AI Engine Optimization (GEO), where marketers exploit AI search results through tricks like keyword-stuffed files to game rankings. They tie this to historical examples of exploitation, harkening back to Google hacking days. Finally, they cover the recent Shai Hulud 2 supply chain attack, which infected hundreds of NPM packages and utilized even more sophisticated obfuscation and delayed execution tactics than its predecessor.