“Pretty intense week with that response to PHP2Shell, am I right?” Said the young SOC analyst to her co-worker at the bar.
“You can say that again, that was crazy?” Came the reply. “Cheers for a job well done!”
Their glasses clinked together and they took their respective sips of beer.
Just then a dark, grizzled figure at the end of the bar came into focus.
“Heh, you kids don’t know what the hell your talking about,” said the figure, interrupting the jovial atmosphere.
“What’s it to you, old man?” The SOC analyst retorted. “You probably have no idea how big of a deal this could’ve been!”
The figure sighed, took a swig of whiskey, and lit a cigarette. He took a drag, and exhaled before continuing to address them.
“You know, there was a year, you were probably still in diapers, 2014, when we had to deal with Shellshock and Heartbleed. Those were real vulnerabilities. We had to fix them while exploitation was happening all around us. Back in those days, they wouldn’t just let us bring down prod to patch either, we had to force that shit down.”
“Yeah, but I mean, PHP2Shell could’ve been the same too - and for us, it’s gonna be more of a thing because AI is finding all these vulns,” the SOC analyst replied.
“Ha. You think AI is a worse adversary than bug hunters with nothing but endless time and cynicism on their hands? Get real. Our bugs were being exploited all around us, and we had real proof of concept code in the hands of anyone - not a fucking essay about potential exploitation in a perfect lab setting.”
“Well, I get it, but I’m sure you were celebrated too, when all was said and done.”
“Ha. We got no parade. We just got Poodle, Meltdown, Spectre, Drown, EternalBlue, Log4Shell. Shit was unrelenting. No AI needed.”
Although they had been skeptical at first, the youngsters were starting to warm to the old timer.
“Are all those vulnerabilities the reason you still sit in this bar drinking and smoking?” Asked the female analyst.
“Not at all,” came the reply. “I just heard about the number 4 thing and that set me off.”
“Ah yeah makes sense. Cheers!”
The three of them raised their glasses.
#infosec
Mike Sheward
npub1m4…x49em
2026-10-25 19:41:55 UTC
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"content": "“Pretty intense week with that response to PHP2Shell, am I right?” Said the young SOC analyst to her co-worker at the bar.\n\n“You can say that again, that was crazy?” Came the reply. “Cheers for a job well done!”\n\nTheir glasses clinked together and they took their respective sips of beer.\n\nJust then a dark, grizzled figure at the end of the bar came into focus.\n\n“Heh, you kids don’t know what the hell your talking about,” said the figure, interrupting the jovial atmosphere.\n\n“What’s it to you, old man?” The SOC analyst retorted. “You probably have no idea how big of a deal this could’ve been!”\n\nThe figure sighed, took a swig of whiskey, and lit a cigarette. He took a drag, and exhaled before continuing to address them.\n\n“You know, there was a year, you were probably still in diapers, 2014, when we had to deal with Shellshock and Heartbleed. Those were real vulnerabilities. We had to fix them while exploitation was happening all around us. Back in those days, they wouldn’t just let us bring down prod to patch either, we had to force that shit down.”\n\n“Yeah, but I mean, PHP2Shell could’ve been the same too - and for us, it’s gonna be more of a thing because AI is finding all these vulns,” the SOC analyst replied.\n\n“Ha. You think AI is a worse adversary than bug hunters with nothing but endless time and cynicism on their hands? Get real. Our bugs were being exploited all around us, and we had real proof of concept code in the hands of anyone - not a fucking essay about potential exploitation in a perfect lab setting.”\n\n“Well, I get it, but I’m sure you were celebrated too, when all was said and done.”\n\n“Ha. We got no parade. We just got Poodle, Meltdown, Spectre, Drown, EternalBlue, Log4Shell. Shit was unrelenting. No AI needed.”\n\nAlthough they had been skeptical at first, the youngsters were starting to warm to the old timer.\n\n“Are all those vulnerabilities the reason you still sit in this bar drinking and smoking?” Asked the female analyst.\n\n“Not at all,” came the reply. “I just heard about the number 4 thing and that set me off.”\n\n“Ah yeah makes sense. Cheers!”\n\nThe three of them raised their glasses.\n\n#infosec",
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