The Spice Must Flow, but the Worm is Hungry: Navigating Cybersecurity Threats

Full Title: The Spice Must Flow, but the Worm is Hungry: Navigating the Cybersecurity Threats Facing Developers in 2026

In the world of Dune, he who controls the Spice controls the universe. In 2026, for the modern enterprise, that "Spice" is the developer’s identity. As our production environments have become increasingly hardened, attackers have shifted their focus upstream—targeting the very individuals who build and ship the software.

Join us for a technical deep-dive into the evolution of supply chain attacks. We will move past the theory to analyze the mechanics of the SolarWinds build-hijack, the self-propagating Shai-Hulud V2 ecosystem worm, and the predatory "Contagious Interview" campaigns currently targeting developers on LinkedIn. From malicious VS Code extensions to poisoned npm hooks, we will explore how our own tools are being weaponized against us. You will leave this session with a "Fremen Survival Guide": a set of practical, engineering-level defenses to secure your IDE, your pipeline, and your workstation.

The Nashville .NET User Group meets every second Thursday of the month.

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Agenda

5:30 PM - Meeting venue open / virtual meeting starts

5:50 PM - Opening announcements

6:00 PM - Speaker starts (roughly 1 hour)

End times vary but we also do networking at the end of our meetings