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Cybersecurity Insights with Contrast CISO David Lindner | 3/22/24

By David Lindner, Chief Information Security Officer

March 22, 2024

API security APIs passwords critical infrastructure chat apps

    
Cybersecurity Insights with Contrast CISO David Lindner | 3/22/24

Insight #1

Things are well and good in the hacker community, as they are now attacking critical water systems. But honestly, one of the attacks was due to a default admin password on some operations gear. How can we do better? These problems should have been solved by now.

Insight #2

Are Slack, Google, Teams, etc. the new "sticky note with your password on it?" I would say it's even worse: At least with a sticky note you have to physically be in the same room as the note. Mind you, it's still a terrible way to save a password. These chat systems are littered with sensitive information, like passwords, and malicious actors know it.

Insight #3

Why do we keep trying to separate application programming interfaces (APIs) from web applications? As we’ve said in the past, feeble APIs = feeble software. It’s all software, the communication channel is generally the same, and the vulnerabilities are THE SAME. According to a recent report from Akamai, last year, a third of web attacks targeted APIs.  Clearly, all software needs to be secured, period. How are you doing it? Here’s our take on how to do it.
API security APIs passwords critical infrastructure chat apps
David Lindner, Chief Information Security Officer

David Lindner, Chief Information Security Officer

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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Cybersecurity Insights with Contrast CISO David Lindner | 3/29/24