OWASP Global AppSec Dublin

First time I've visited this beautiful city! Lots of Guinness. Lots of AppSec and an interesting talk on securing AI.

I had the pleasure of joining my Sonatype colleague, Steve Poole, on a roadtrip to Dublin to check out the OWASP Global AppSec conference. OWASP run two of these Global conferences every year in different locations in the spirit of promoting inclusivity. Just to declare my bias, I’ve been a huge fan of OWASP since the start of my cyber security and software development journey, when I used the OWASP Top Ten, the Damn Vulnerable Web Application and OWASP ZAP to help learn more about cybersecurity, and with this conference ticket, I also enrolled to become an OWASP member.

The conference was very good and some great talks all round. I can’t mention them all but please take a look at them all on the OWASP Foundation YouTube channel. I enjoyed one in particular from OWASP London Chapter Leader, Sam Stepanyan on the project he co-leads, OWASP Nettacker, which is well worth a watch on how you can protect yourself with this important tool.

Another talk which is worth a mention was from Rob Van Der Veer around attacking and protecting artificial intelligence. This is a subject that is very close to me, as previously I have built various machine learning projects, both for fun and as part of my former job. The new surge of Generative AI (Gen AI) has also turned the area into a place of excitement, but also FUD and wild speculation, some of which I commented on when I wrote for devops.com last month.

This area is so new and Rob is extremely knowledgeable on it. With improvements happening all the time, I believe this is something that will need to secure going forward. Enjoy.