SecAppDev 2023 workshop details

The software security industry is shifting left. Traditional security tools have failed to address the challenges of modern engineering teams as they often are too slow, overwhelm users with false positives, and do not provide sufficient remediation help. As a result, they do not ultimately raise a company’s security bar.

In this workshop we will focus on hands-on exercises, supported by research results to teach participants how to use Semgrep by taking a different approach to security, called paved road or secure defaults.

Learning goal: Why the current approach to software security is not working. How to automate code review to free up your time for higher impact work. Best practices in rolling out continuous code scanning, and how to write custom Semgrep rules.

User authentication is a critical component in almost every application. In this workshop, we explore user authentication and investigate which mechanisms are available in modern applications, along with their security properties, pros, and cons. You will learn about state-of-the-art passwordless authentication mechanisms, including the Web Authentication API and the newly-introduced PassKey mechanism. Additionally, we explore multi-factor authentication mechanisms and their security properties.

This workshop consists of a mix between lectures, demos, interactive quizzes, and hands-on labs.

Learning goal: In-depth understanding of the security properties provided by modern authentication mechanisms, along with the technical knowledge to implement these mechanisms in modern web applications.

Threat Modeling is a structured methodology to efficiently analyze complex systems. This can help you identify weaknesses and prioritize appropriate countermeasures. But to maximize its effect, this must be an ongoing practice, not just a one-time activity, so we also introduce a more lightweight "value driven" approach for security-minded developers.

The threat modeling techniques taught in this workshop will guide you in contributing to your product's security, focusing on security features, and designing a secure product architecture.

Learning goal: How to design a secure product with threat modeling. Share useful models to evoke insight and communicate with others. Inspire and convince others to collaborate on threat modeling in a continuous workflow.