Devcon VI in Bogotá: CSO Ryan Lackey Examines the Past Three Years in Web3 Security

Evertas Chief Security Officer Ryan Lackey took the stage at Devcon VI in Bogotá, Colombia to join a panel discussion about major blockchain-related security incidents in the three years since Devcon V.

Devcon is a major Ethereum developers event.

Ryan’s panel launched Devcon Day 2, and you can see it in the first hour of the day’s video feed.

Ryan is a globally recognized computer security expert and has a special talent for identifying and understanding the lapses that can result in breaches, with a strong emphasis on the role of effective user-focused engineering in avoiding catastrophic outcomes.

When summarizing how the state of data security has changed in the web3 space since 2019, Ryan points to several causes for optimism saying, “We’ve seen a lot of positive changes in the overall ecosystem, where we have some chain analysis tools, a huge ecosystem of security audit and infrastructure. We have hundreds of audit firms, both dedicated to the web2 world and web3 smart contract audits. We also have more of a culture of bug bounties and reporting.”

Ryan went on to note how the rise of NFTs over the past three years has brought an influx of new participants into the web3 space with artistic — as opposed to more traditional technical — backgrounds, and that they are at a disadvantage when it comes to knowing what is and is not conducive to keeping their keys secure, saying, “We haven’t built, as an industry, the right tools to make it safe for [non technical] people to do things without understanding all the details of how it works.”

Central to effective insurance underwriting in web3 is an understanding of an entity’s technology risks. As chief security officer at Evertas, Ryan leads our famously thorough assessments of insured custody systems. He also helped develop the first rigorous hot versus warm crypto wallet taxonomical classification.

As you can see in the video of the Devcon VI event, Ryan is a great addition to any blockchain security conversation. If you want to add him or any other member of Evertas leadership to your event, send us a note and we’ll make it happen.