It was six years ago, when I joined the security team of Libra/Diem at Facebook. Two years later I was security lead and I had learned a huge number of lessons, some even life lessons.

I’ve been trying to motivate myself to record a vlog of some sort with some of the lessons learned during that time. It was a hectic two years during which I got my first gray hair, attended a house party with Mark Zuckeberg, grilled some s’mores on the Facebook campus while stalling all night to help announce the Libra project to the world at 6 AM, met a kidnapper as part as wanting to extend my crypto security circle, and wrote a book while traveling the US during covid.

But anyway, while I find the time and the will to record that one, I thought I would talk about a book that I rarely talk about, the security engineer handbook.

It’s a tiny read, with no bullshit and fluff, that contains a huge amount of learnings and gotchas that one should know about when joining a security team, and trying to make it, as a first timer. A huge amount of lessons I learned from are in that book, and I would recommend it anyone who’s in school and learning about security, or getting started in a security team, or working at a security team and wondering about the meta.

Anyway, it’s here.