Sonia Burney: Securing & Optimizing the Web with Client & Server-Side Solutions

About this talk:

Securing and Optimizing the Web Experience with Client-side and Server-side Solutions

The challenge of maintaining a secure site is typically prioritized over creating a fast and optimal site, because of the focus on blocking malicious traffic at the origin. It is often forgotten that security is not only a concern at the origin, but also at the browser. And with that, there are new opportunities to safely secure the user experience while also optimizing the front-end experience.

While the focus has generally been on protecting users by blocking requests going to the origin, there is now a shift in trying to protect users at the browser while providing an optimal experience. There are other areas such as HTTP2 with the new concept of server push, where the focus is queuing up resources at the origin without being requested by the browser. Additionally, the more recent concept of Single Page Application also aims to reduce the number of requests during a session while loading all necessary resources the first time a site is loaded. This poses the question: “Where does security fit in?”, as we are still attempting to reduce the number of requests and focusing on the end user experience.

The goal of security is to ensure we protect the origin servers by blocking malicious requests going forward. The goal of front-end performance techniques is to improve page rendering for the end user by using several optimizations, one being reducing the number of HTTP requests, which increase load time.

With both goals defined, we can see that the implications of optimization techniques being applied to a website inherently reduce the need for security at the origin, as much of the rendering work is focused on the front end without needing to go back to the origin server. Additionally, through the use of certain techniques, such as Service Workers, users can improve the end user experience and avoid some security risks that are involved in navigating between various pages in a site, clicking on third-party content, and filling out forms. We intend on discussing how Security and Performance can be enforced at the browser level through various optimization techniques and security enhancements, which overall provide an optimal end-user experience.

About the speaker:

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Sonia Burney

With a background in Software Development throughout her years at Santa Clara University and in the tech world, Sonia has been able to successfully participate in many roles. Every role, at every company, has driven her to learn more about the tech industry, specifically with regards to web experience and development. While her background consists of mostly software development roles within innovative teams/companies, her current role at Akamai Technologies now includes consulting and coming up with new solutions to challenging problems in web experience and web security. Specifically, coming up with algorithms designed to improve the front-end experience at the browser, while also maintaining a security hygiene. Recently, she and her sister wrote a book Security and Performance: Breaking the Conundrum, which addresses how to achieve an optimal yet secure experience through various front end technique. Outside of work, not only is she a dedicated foodie, but she enjoys traveling, running, and spending time with friends and family.

Event Details

The event is hosted at Instart Logic’s Palo Alto office on Thursday, May 11th, 2017 at 6:30PM. Doors open at 6:00PM. Food and drinks provided by our host/sponsor (thank you!).

Agenda:

18:00 :: Check-in & Mingle
18:30 :: Announcements and Introductions
19:00 :: Presentation
20:00 :: Questions and Answer & Open Form
20:30 :: Networking & Discussion

Location:

Instart Logic
450 Lambert Avenue
Palo Alto CA 94306

Caltrain: California Ave stop.

Sponsor:

Instart Logic (http://instartlogic.com/solutions): Endpoint-aware application delivery solution that improves applications with an intelligent architecture optimizing and securing website elements based on a user’s device, browser, and network conditions.