Atlassian Admin's Guide: Securing Your System from Jira to Defense

Unlock expert tips for administering your Atlassian apps and scaling your System of Work. This deck delivers best practices, live demos of Atlassian Administration, and direct Q&A with product experts; everything org admins need to manage and optimize their Atlassian environment. 
Jira instance is more than a project tracker, it's a high-value target. Every automation rule, attachment, and API token is a potential entry point for an attacker, while misconfigured permissions in Confluence can expose your core intellectual property. We often bolt security onto our DevOps toolchain as an afterthought, turning Atlassian's powerful ecosystem into a sprawling, unmonitored attack surface that keeps engineers and CISOs alike awake at night.

In this session, We will bridge the gap between red-team offense and governance compliance right inside your Atlassian stack. Drawing from experience building ethical hacking tools like the DRACULAR framework and contributing to national digital policy, We will demonstrate practical attacks on common misconfigurations before pivoting to a defender's blueprint. You will leave with actionable strategies to leverage Atlassian Access for Zero-Trust, transform Audit Logs into a forensic tool, and embed security into the DNA of your Jira workflows and Bitbucket pipelines, turning your greatest productivity tools into pillars of your cyber resilience.

Key takeaways 

Understand your attack surface: How automation rules, API tokens, marketplace apps, and misconfigured permissions in Jira and Confluence become high-value targets for attackers.

See offense in action: Live-style walkthroughs of common misconfigurations and how red-teamers pivot across projects, spaces, and repositories inside Atlassian tools.

Blueprint for Zero-Trust with Atlassian Access: Concrete patterns for enforcing strong identity, SSO, MFA, SCIM, and least-privilege across users, groups, and external collaborators.

Operationalize audit & observability: How to turn Atlassian audit logs, security alerts, and integrations into a forensic and monitoring layer instead of a compliance checkbox.

Embed security into workflows and pipelines: Practical ways to bake checks into Jira workflows, approval paths, and Bitbucket pipelines so security becomes an inherent part of delivery, not an afterthought.

Agenda 

5:00 PM – 5:15 PM | Check-In & Icebreaker

Welcome first-time attendees and quick intro to Atlassian Community Nairobi.

Icebreaker

5:15 PM – 6:10 PM |  Atlassian Admin's Guide to Scaling Your System of Work – Presented by Michael Kimathi

Admin observability: using logs, reports, and admin insights to see how work really flows.

Hygiene and lifecycle: archiving projects, cleaning fields, taming configs, and keeping your instance healthy.

Preparing for the next stage: what to fix now before doubling teams, regions, or products.

6:10 PM – 7:00 PM | From Offense to Defense: Zero-Trust with Atlassian Access – Presented by Danfold Mosongo

Identity & Access: Using Atlassian Access for SSO, MFA, SCIM, and least-privilege at scale.

Governance in Practice: Designing group structures, org policies, and external collaborator controls that actually hold.

Audit & Detection: Turning Audit Logs into a forensic tool instead of a compliance checkbox.

7:00 PM – 7:20 PM | Knowledge Check, Q&A & Community Share-Out

Rapid-fire knowledge check: Scenario-based questions on misconfigurations and fixes.

Open Q&A: Attendee questions on specific setups, compliance needs, and tooling.

7:25 PM – 8:00 PM | Closing, Networking

Closing remarks and key takeaways recap.

Networking with peers, security and platform leaders, and Atlassian Community members.

Target Audience

Engineering leaders,

Jira/Confluence admins,

DevOps and platform teams.

Security engineers, risk and compliance leaders

CISOs using Atlassian tools in high-growth or regulated environments.

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Agenda

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Speakers

Danfold Mosongo - TECH PATHS (CYBER SECURITY ENGINEER | TECH POLICY & DIGITAL GOVERNANCE STATESMAN)

I am a Cybersecurity Engineer and digital governance expert who bridges the gap between technical security and practical policy. I architect secure systems and contributes to national digital policy in Kenya, working with entities like the Ministry of ICT and the NCIC. As the founder of TECH.PATHS and a builder of red-team tools like the DRACULAR framework, i am passionate about translating co…

Michael Kimathi - Impact Masters & Africa's Talking (Consulting Entrepreneur & Head of Developer Community)

Award winning Developer and Tech Ecosystem Builder. He connects people to solutions that empower them to realize their highest potential and as a result, this has produced professionals and scalable businesses. In his free time, you will find him leading the developer community. His name is Michael Kimathi and this is his life purpose. Entrepreneur in Music and Technology. Driven by the purpos…

Moderator

Michael Kimathi - Impact Masters & Africa's Talking (Consulting Entrepreneur & Head of Developer Community)

Award winning Developer and Tech Ecosystem Builder. He connects people to solutions that empower them to realize their highest potential and as a result, this has produced professionals and scalable businesses. In his free time, you will find him leading the developer community. His name is Michael Kimathi and this is his life purpose. Entrepreneur in Music and Technology. Driven by the purpos…

Hosted By

Michael Kimathi, Atlassian Community Leader

Computer Scientist| Entrepreneur| Pro DJ (Consulting Entrepreneur in Technology and Entertainment). Developer Community Expert.

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