Breaking to Build: What Security Teaches Us About Openness
Keynote Theatre (2B09) | Wed 21 Jan 9:10 a.m.–10:10 a.m.
Presented by
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Kylie McDevitt is the founder of InfoSect, where she focuses on Linux and embedded systems security. She previously served as a Technical Director at the Australian Signals Directorate and began her career as a radio engineer with MobileNet. Over more than 16 years in the industry, Kylie has combined technical expertise with a passion for teaching, contributing as a casual lecturer at university and as an organiser of BSides Canberra and CSides - initiatives that foster growth and collaboration within Australia’s security community.
Kylie McDevitt is the founder of InfoSect, where she focuses on Linux and embedded systems security. She previously served as a Technical Director at the Australian Signals Directorate and began her career as a radio engineer with MobileNet. Over more than 16 years in the industry, Kylie has combined technical expertise with a passion for teaching, contributing as a casual lecturer at university and as an organiser of BSides Canberra and CSides - initiatives that foster growth and collaboration within Australia’s security community.
Abstract
Security research often looks like destruction from the outside, but breaking things is really a way of understanding how to build them better. In this talk, Kylie McDevitt shares what her team learned while testing fifty consumer IoT devices to provide technical advice for the Australian Government’s IoT Code of Practice. By pulling apart real products, they uncovered recurring design flaws, fragile assumptions, and systemic patterns that shape modern embedded security.
This talk explores how those lessons apply far beyond IoT. It highlights how openness, transparency, and healthy feedback loops are essential for hardening systems, supporting vendors, and helping communities grow. Kylie will reflect on what breaking things taught her about collaborating with industry, supporting the security community, and building an ecosystem where shared effort leads to stronger outcomes.
Security research often looks like destruction from the outside, but breaking things is really a way of understanding how to build them better. In this talk, Kylie McDevitt shares what her team learned while testing fifty consumer IoT devices to provide technical advice for the Australian Government’s IoT Code of Practice. By pulling apart real products, they uncovered recurring design flaws, fragile assumptions, and systemic patterns that shape modern embedded security.
This talk explores how those lessons apply far beyond IoT. It highlights how openness, transparency, and healthy feedback loops are essential for hardening systems, supporting vendors, and helping communities grow. Kylie will reflect on what breaking things taught her about collaborating with industry, supporting the security community, and building an ecosystem where shared effort leads to stronger outcomes.