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CISO Thoughts with
David Lindner

Contrast Security CISO David Lindner provides his top three weekly insights for CISOs, developers and the security community here. These are updated every Friday, so be sure to check back for the latest news on what's top of mind in AppSec and DevSecOps.

The latest insights as of May 2, 2025:

 

production runtime visibilty

 

 

Insight No. 1 — Know which vulnerabilities are active in production

Consider this: your pre-production scans might flag hundreds of vulnerabilities, but which ones are actually being exploited in your live environment? The uncomfortable truth is that without visibility into your production runtime, you're operating in the dark, potentially focusing resources on threats that pose minimal immediate risk while critical exposures remain unseen. The strategic imperative now is to implement robust controls within production to gain that crucial visibility, allowing for informed prioritization and a tangible reduction in your organization's true security risk.

Insight No. 2 — Agentic AI: A critical point for security

The emergence of agentic AI presents a critical juncture for security leadership. While the allure of automation and speed is strong, dismissing the well-documented limitations of generative AI would be a strategic error. Long-term security posture will depend on a balanced integration, maximizing benefits while actively mitigating inherent flaws.

broken robot

 

 

 

 

vanishing OS

 

 

Insight No. 3 — The silent risk of vanished open-source

Consider the scenario: A widely used open-source library, integral to your infrastructure, simply vanishes. No notice, no support, just gone. While the proposed OpenEoX standard attempts to bring order to end-of-life disclosures, the silent threat posed by abandoned open-source projects — briefly mentioned but critically understated — represents a significant vulnerability demanding immediate strategic attention from technical security teams.

 

fingerpointing

 

Don’t let your work culture hurt your cybersecurity

Foster a healthy cybersecurity culture by rewarding proactive reporting as opposed to  punishing mistakes. Shift from a blame-heavy mindset to one that values resilience and collaboration, reducing errors, and strengthening defenses.

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Cybersecurity Insights with Contrast CISO David Lindner | 04/25/25

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Cybersecurity Insights with Contrast CISO David Lindner | 04/18/25

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Cybersecurity Insights with Contrast CISO David Lindner | 04/11/25

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David Lindner

Chief Information Security Officer, Contrast Security

David is an experienced application security professional with over 20 years in cybersecurity. In addition to serving as the chief information security officer, David leads the Contrast Labs team that is focused on analyzing threat intelligence to help enterprise clients develop more proactive approaches to their application security programs. Throughout his career, David has worked within multiple disciplines in the security field—from application development to network architecture design and support, to IT security and consulting, to security training, to application security. Over the past decade, David has specialized in all things related to mobile applications and securing them. He has worked with many clients across industry sectors, including financial, government, automobile, healthcare, and retail. David is an active participant in numerous bug bounty programs.

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