AI-Era AppSec: Transparency, Trust, and Risk Beyond the Firewall - Felipe Zipitria, Steve Springett, Aruneesh Salhotra, Ken Huang - ASW #363
Application Security Weekly (Audio)Show Notes
In an era dominated by AI-powered security tools and cloud-native architectures, are traditional Web Application Firewalls still relevant? Join us as we speak with Felipe Zipitria, co-leader of the OWASP Core Rule Set (CRS) project. Felipe has been at the forefront of open-source security, leading the development of one of the world's most widely deployed WAF rule sets, trusted by organizations globally to protect their web applications. Felipe explains why WAFs remain a critical layer in modern defense-in-depth strategies. We'll explore what makes OWASP CRS the go-to choice for security teams, dive into the project's current innovations, and discuss how traditional rule-based security is evolving to work alongside — not against — AI. Segment Resources: github.com/coreruleset/coreruleset
coreruleset.org
The future of CycloneDX is defined by modularity, API-first design, and deeper contextual insight, enabling transparency that is not just comprehensive, but actionable. At its heart is the Transparency Exchange API, which delivers a normalized, format-agnostic model for sharing SBOMs, attestations, risks, and more across the software supply chain. As genAI transforms every sector of modern business, the security community faces a question: how do we protect systems we can't fully see or understand? In this fireside chat, Aruneesh Salhotra, Project Lead for OWASP AIBOM and Co-Lead of OWASP AI Exchange, discusses two groundbreaking initiatives that are reshaping how organizations approach AI security and supply chain transparency. OWASP AI Exchange has emerged as the go-to single resource for AI security and privacy, providing over 200 pages of practical advice on protecting AI and data-centric systems from threats. Through its official liaison partnership with CEN/CENELEC, the project has contributed 70 pages to ISO/IEC 27090 and 40 pages to the EU AI Act security standard OWASP, achieving OWASP Flagship project status in March 2025. Meanwhile, the OWASP AIBOM Project is establishing a comprehensive framework to provide transparency into how AI models are built, trained, and deployed, extending OWASP's mission of making security visible to the rapidly evolving AI ecosystem. This conversation explores how these complementary initiatives are addressing real-world challenges—from prompt injection and data poisoning to model provenance and supply chain risks—while actively shaping international standards and regulatory frameworks. We'll discuss concrete achievements, lessons learned from global collaboration, and the ambitious roadmap ahead as these projects continue to mature and expand their impact across the AI security landscape. Segment Resources: https://owasp.org/www-project-aibom/
https://www.youtube.com/@OWASPAIBOM
https://www.youtube.com/@RobvanderVeer-ex3gj
Agentic AI introduces unique and complex security challenges that render traditional risk management frameworks insufficient. In this keynote, Ken Huang, CEO of Distributedapps.ai and a key contributor to AI security standards, outlines a new approach to manage these emerging threats. The session will present a practical strategy that integrates the NIST AI Risk Management Framework with specialized tools to address the full lifecycle of Agentic AI. Segment Resources: aivss.owasp.org
https://kenhuangus.substack.com/p/owasp-aivss-the-new-framework-for
https://cloudsecurityalliance.org/blog/2025/02/06/agentic-ai-threat-modeling-framework-maestro
This interview is sponsored by the OWASP GenAI Security Project. Visit https://securityweekly.com/owaspappsec to watch all of CyberRisk TV's interviews from the OWASP 2025 Global AppSec Conference! Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/asw for all the latest episodes! Show Notes: https://securityweekly.com/asw-363
More from Application Security Weekly (Audio)
The OWAS Mobile Application Security (MAS) project recently released an updated version of its guidance, with excellent advice organized into common weaknesses, a verification standard for devs (MASVS), and a testing guide (MASTG). Ryan Lloyd and Jan Seredynski from Guardsquare dive into the project to talk about how it's been updated, how orgs can use it, and the challenges orgs face in managing their mobile frameworks and environments. We also cover how agents and LLMs are impacting mobile security and what future iterations of the MAS project might include for securing mobile apps interacting with LLMs or being written by LLMs. Finally, we share practical ways for developers to get involved as OWASP contributors and advocates. Segment Resources: https://mas.owasp.org https://mas.owasp.org/MASWE/ https://hubs.ly/Q04ykvgm0 This segment is sponsored by Guardsquare. Visit https://securityweekly.com/guardsquare to learn more! Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/asw for all the latest episodes! Show Notes: https://securityweekly.com/asw-405
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. Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/asw for all the latest episodes! 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. Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/asw for all the latest episodes! 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