Nate Sanders (mauvehed)
Nate Sanders, Senior Manager of Security Engineering & Operations, has spent over 20 years in IT, with more than a decade in Information Security, specializing in infrastructure and application security, as well as vulnerability management. Known in the hacker world as "mauvehed," he’s been gleefully breaking things since the late 1980s, from disassembling his sister’s electronics to uncovering hidden features in software. A self-proclaimed shenanigator and proudly neurodivergent (AuDHD) thinker, Nate blends technical expertise with playful curiosity, proving that breaking things is just another way of learning how they work while pushing boundaries, sharing lessons, and leading with a mischievous streak.
Session
Tired of endlessly patching vulnerabilities? It’s time to rethink the game. This talk challenges the reactive approach to vulnerability management and offers actionable strategies for developers to prevent first-party vulnerabilities altogether. By focusing on cultural changes, targeting entire classes of vulnerabilities (like XSS and SQL injection), adopting threat modeling, and rethinking patch cycles for third-party dependencies, you can shift from firefighting to building resilient systems. We’ll even explore modern techniques like ephemeral infrastructure and burn-and-replace methodologies to reduce reliance on traditional patching.