Writing about security engineering and leadership.

Practical perspectives on building security teams, automating compliance, solving architectural challenges, and navigating the organizational dynamics that make security programs succeed or fail.

CloudTrail for AI Agents

tl;dr — TrailTool is in early access at trailtool.io. It pre-aggregates CloudTrail into an access graph so AI agents can answer security questions without drowning in raw logs. Built for IAM least privilege workflows, incident investigations, and anything that needs...

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GraphGRC v2: SOC 2 Compliance in GitHub

GRC tools like Vanta cost $12K+/year and lock your compliance docs in proprietary systems. GraphGRC v2 gives you SOC 2 documentation in GitHub - pre-written controls, policies, and processes in Markdown with automated validation. Free and open source.

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Backyard APT: A Raccoon Story

Raccoons are both advanced and persistent threats. After one attacked my chihuahua Jolene, I declared war on my backyard invaders. Through ultrasonic deterrents, motion-activated sprinklers, and wacky inflatable air dancers, I learned critical security lessons - including that removing attacker...

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Data Retention is Two Different Problems

Data retention covers two different problems - preservation (minimum time you must keep archival data) and deletion (maximum time you can keep personal data). They require opposite technical approaches - one prevents deletion, the other enforces it. The elegant solutions?...

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Refocusing Vendor Security on Risk Reduction

Modern software companies use a lot of software services. Traditional security teams address third-party risk through certifications and questionnaires, but there's an opportunity to actually reduce risk by collaborating with implementation teams on secure configuration decisions.

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