Application Security Weekly (Audio)

To celebrate our 404th episode we discuss what's not found in modern appsec and what still exists that should become not found. The conversation starts with a classic problem of appsec -- looking for a reliable vuln prioritization methodology. But we expand from there to challenge whether a focus on vulns and patches is even the right choice for an appsec program. Then it's on to incentives, the role of agents in writing and securing software, and what we should be looking for to bring new appsec practitioners into the industry.
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Show Notes: https://securityweekly.com/asw-404

The principle of least privilege access is ubiquitous in recommendations, but perhaps too uncommon in practice. Alex Olivier explains how the AuthZen Working Group has been approaching new standards, guidelines, and practical deployment patterns to make it easier for orgs to establish more refined and correct access policies. It's a problem that predates LLMs, but also one that agents and MCPs made all the more acute. We talk about what intent means when trying to constrain agents' activities, what role LLMs have in policy decisions, and how LLMs can help create a much-needed inventory of access controls.
Segment Resources:
https://www.cerbos.dev/blog/dimmer-switch-not-a-kill-switch-rethinking-ai-agent-governance
https://www.cerbos.dev/blog/multi-hop-delegation-ai-agents
https://openid.net/wg/authzen/
Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/asw for all the latest episodes!
Show Notes: https://securityweekly.com/asw-403

Finding flaws with LLMs and agents is changing bug bounty programs. But it's not necessarily changing how orgs fix those flaws. Shlomie Liberow shares his experience across a decade of bounty programs and how they have changed for researchers and orgs. He explains why fixing the bug reported through a bug bounty is more about understanding interconnected systems than fixing a single piece of software. We discuss how orgs can be more effective at securing their environment and what role LLMs might have in evaluating controls. Plus, we look to the future of bug bounty programs and how researchers can still excel through curiosity and expertise on a topic rather than relying on scanners, prompts, and luck.
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Show Notes: https://securityweekly.com/asw-402

Prompt injection demonstrates one of the major challenges in securing LLMs and agents -- how do you ensure an agent ignores attackers and only does what you instructed it to do. The flaw highlights how LLMs mix inputs, context, and outputs without any strict boundaries between them. Julie Brunias joins us to talk through examples of injections, why their consequences can go beyond information leaks, and why trying to mitigate them with other LLMs is insufficient.
Segment resources:
https://llmgateway.io/open-source
https://www.wiz.io/blog/off-guard-breaking-litellm-from-authentication-bypass-to-cloud-compromise
Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/asw for all the latest episodes!
Show Notes: https://securityweekly.com/asw-401

While agents and LLMs haven't fundamentally changed core mobile vulnerability types, they have supercharged speed, scale, and accessibility—democratizing threats like automated phishing, synthetic identity fraud, and easier identification of hard-coded secrets. Ryan Lloyd and Jason Cortlund break down how threat actors leverage LLMs as a force multiplier to accelerate mobile app attacks. Then we discuss actionable defense strategies, from viewing agents as an active adversary to leveraging server-side threat telemetry, attestation, and layered defense strategies combined with polymorphic code releases.
This segment is sponsored by Guardsquare. Visit https://securityweekly.com/guardsquare to learn more about them!
Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/asw for all the latest episodes!
Show Notes: https://securityweekly.com/asw-400