A security incident exposed the resumes of 460 job seekers. The surprising part? There was no single bug or obviously wrong decision to blame. Instead, a series of reasonable technical choices interacted in unexpected ways, creating a vulnerability that went unnoticed until it was too late. In this talk, I’ll share how the incident was discovered, investigated, and resolved, along with practical lessons on security, complexity, and hidden assumptions in Ruby on Rails applications.
Paul McMahon is the founder of TokyoDev and has been building Ruby on Rails applications for over 20 years. He has lived in Japan since 2006, founded the Tokyo Rubyist Meetup in 2010, and previously co-founded the event platform Doorkeeper. Today he runs TokyoDev, helping international software developers advance their careers in Japan while staying hands-on with the development and operation of the site’s Rails application.