Locknote: Conclusions & Key Takeaways from Black Hat USA 2024

AI and automation are increasing complexity and abstraction layers, making systems harder to understand end-to-end

Hardware attacks that were previously only accessible to nation states are becoming cheaper and more accessible to students/researchers

There’s a concerning trend of building complex interdependent systems without proper failure testing and recovery planning

Many companies lack proper contingency/disaster recovery exercises and don’t adequately test system failures

Organizations need to focus more on making technology “safe to use” rather than just adding security controls

The increasing abstraction layers in software development means fewer developers understand low-level system details

Conference submissions showed more maturity with better references and technical depth compared to previous years

Companies often implement security controls incorrectly due to lack of clear guidance and understanding

There’s a growing disconnect between high-level abstractions and understanding the underlying systems they depend on

Security resilience requires proper compartmentalization, privilege reduction, and understanding system dependencies

Failure needs to be treated as an expected occurrence that systems should gracefully handle and recover from

Email-based authentication remains problematic despite decades of attempts to fix it with tools like PGP and S/MIME

Developer education needs to balance high-level programming with understanding of fundamental system concepts

Security products alone cannot solve problems - organizations need proper processes, testing and understanding

Complex interconnected systems create cascading failures that impact operations even without being direct customers