Dan Guido on cybersecurity
From Dan Guido, Trail of Bits · · The Archive: Crypto, Startups, and Stories
“I think right now this is something that a good friend of mine, Alex Stamos, um, has been doing a road show about, but uh, there's really only a small number of companies in the world that are truly targeted by adversaries with zero day. Uh, most people are going to get exploited by like password reuse and misconfigurations and like social engineering and that kind of stuff. Um, but there's only a very small number of companies where they truly have to think about what do I do if I get a Chromo day. Uh, but with the further proliferation of all these security flaws and the ability for people to write exploits that target them, many more companies will be subject to attacks that involve zero days over the next 12 months. And that is something that none of them are prepared for.”
On , Dan Guido, CEO at Trail of Bits, spoke about cybersecurity during Dan Guido, Trail of Bits on The Archive: Crypto, Startups, and Stories.
About Dan Guido
In an April 2025 podcast appearance, Dan Guido, co-founder and CEO of Trail of Bits, discussed his background in security research, the threat posed by North Korean hackers, and the relationship between AI and cybersecurity. He stated that the insecurity of blockchain protocols is "funding nukes in North Korea," noting that North Korea's annual GDP is roughly $25 billion and that it steals an estimated $1 to 2 billion per year. Guido expressed admiration for North Korea's hacking capabilities, saying they write novel tools on the fly and develop custom smart contract code, unlike other state-sponsored groups that recycle off-the-shelf exploits. He also said that AI-powered bug-finding is not new, noting that Trail of Bits won a DARPA AI cyber challenge in 2024 and that "15 or 20 bug finding systems using AI" already existed at that time. Guido said that only a small number of companies are likely to be targeted by adversaries with zero-day exploits, and that most breaches result from password reuse, misconfigurations, and social engineering. He described Trail of Bits as a "learning system" that ensures individual insights are shared across the organization. Regarding the future of AI in security, he stated that the opportunity for defense using AI is "way bigger than offense," because AI is well-suited for pattern matching against a company's structured data to find latent security issues.