Fire, Brimstone, and Bad Security Decisions
Wendy Nather
BSidesSF 2025 — Here Be Dragons · Day 2 · Main
Security's deepest problems are not individual mistakes but structural decisions made long ago that were probably correct at the time and have never been fully revisited. Wendy Nather, drawing on decades of experience as a blue teamer, analyst, and security leader, walked through how to recognize when a foundational decision has stopped working, why the industry keeps repeating them anyway, and how to begin changing course — with particular emphasis on building security that serves people on their worst days, not just their best ones. ---
AI review
Wendy Nather talking about the structural decisions that shaped a broken industry, illustrated with the death of her husband and a DARPA hat generating confabulated salary estimates. This is not a technical talk. It is a necessary one, and she's earned the authority to give it.