Podcast: Future Cybersecurity: Hardware Memory Safety, Automated Governance and Post-Quantum Cryptography
In this episode, Chris Swan, engineer at Atsign and security track host at QCon London, reflects on the ideas shared during QCon London 2026 and teases topics of the future edition. The discussion explores how security engineering is shifting from relying on human vigilance toward automated, system-level defences across the entire application stack. By Chris Swan
In this podcast from QCon London 2026, Chris Swan, an engineer at Atsign and host of the security track, discusses the shifting focus of security engineering from human vigilance to automated, system-level defenses across the entire application stack. He emphasizes the importance of governance and supply chain security due to the rapid shift towards machine-to-machine interaction.
Swan introduced guest Olimpiu Pop, an InfoQ editor and former host of the security track at QCon. He explained that he invited Swan to host the track due to his expertise in post-quantum security for agentic applications, which he has been working on for over five years. Swan aims to build a platform that simplifies incorporating post-quantum security into such applications.
The discussion covered several topics, including the need to systematize and automate security measures due to the leaky abstractions beneath software. Swan argued that reliance on human vigilance is insufficient to track vulnerabilities across dependencies and platforms. He highlighted the importance of governance, such as the Software Bill of Materials (SBOM), and the significance of hardware security, particularly in the context of AI integration into various systems.
Written by urgent.news from InfoQ's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
