Suggestions
Devdatta Akhawe
Security at Figma.
Devdatta Akhawe is an accomplished technical leader and engineering manager with a strong background in security.
Currently serving as the Head of Security at Figma, Devdatta is known for his expertise in partnering with various teams to deliver secure and innovative products.
He holds a PhD in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Bachelor of Engineering (Hons.) in Computer Science from Birla Institute of Technology and Science.
Throughout his career, Devdatta has held several key positions in reputable organizations such as Dropbox, where he served as Director of Security Engineering, Engineering Manager, and Staff Security Engineer, among others.
Additionally, he has been involved with notable companies like Gather Town, Common Room, and Descript as an Investor, as well as Symmetry Systems and Bolster, Inc as an Advisor.
Devdatta Akhawe's professional journey also includes valuable experiences as an Intern at Microsoft and Yahoo!, a Graduate Student Researcher and Instructor at UC Berkeley, and a Vice President at Maharashtra Mandal.
His passion for security and product safety is evident in the diverse roles he has undertaken, including Security Engineer, Research Intern, and Webmaster at various organizations.
Highlights
Great talk on MacOS Cookie Theft by Nick from the Figma team, at BSides LV last week: https://lnkd.in/gzDS4bsh (starts at 6h24m)
Beyond just the sheer technical depth here, what I love about this talk is it really shows what it takes to do the best work in security. Nick starts with red teaming how malware could steal cookies, talks through how we could prevent these thefts (blue team), and then for the cases that couldn't be prevented, how we could detect these attempts (detection and response).
Too often I meet newcomers to the field stressed out about red team vs blue team; or detection team vs engineering teams. Its all security and the best engineers are able to use the right tool as needed.
And no, I can't tag him cos he is not on LinkedIn. That might also be the reason why he is so good. If you are interested in working with people like Nick, Figma is hiring! figma.fun/seceng 🙂
Lots of reminiscing on how bsides and rsa has evolved in the last 15 years. Here's mine.
To me, one of the key positive changes has been the evolution of security products. Thinkst Canary might have been the trailblazers but there are many security products now just solving real problems with the hard work and great engineering we need. There will always be the hype train (GenAI this year?) but I am hyped for the products solving for real needs with solid engineering.
This year, I am excited for Material Security, Astrix Security, Opal Security, Semgrep, Socket, and iVerify. Unfortunately, I won't be at RSA this year to celebrate with them but check them out if you are in SF; and I would love to learn from other security practitioners which security products they are raving about (as usual, Thinkst was the trailblazer here with the first customer "love" page https://canary.tools/love).
