In this episode of the We're In Podcast, host Ryan Rutan Synack's Sr Director of Community sits down with independent security researcher and Synack Red Team member Malcolm Stagg. Malcolm breaks down his origin story-from software engineering at Microsoft and DARPA hardware challenges to discovering NATJack, a novel class of network address translation (NAT) manipulation attacks. Learn how attackers can hijack DNS and TCP sessions, bypass container isolation, and exploit Linux Netfilter flaws-plus practical mitigations you can implement today.
In this episode of the We're In Podcast, host Ryan Rutan Synack's Sr Director of Community sits down with independent security researcher and Synack Red Team member Malcolm Stagg.
Malcolm breaks down his origin story-from software engineering at Microsoft and DARPA hardware challenges to discovering NATJack, a novel class of network address translation (NAT) manipulation attacks.
Learn how attackers can hijack DNS and TCP sessions, bypass container isolation, and exploit Linux Netfilter flaws-plus practical mitigations you can implement today.
Learn more about NATJack mitigations & research: https://natjack.io
Join the Synack Red Team: https://www.synack.com/red-team/
Chapters:
00:00 - Introduction: Welcome to the We're In Podcast
02:27 - Breaking Hardware: The DARPA SSITH Challenge
06:02 - AI in Cybersecurity: Promise, Limits, and Triage Fatigue
08:44 - Introducing NATJack: Exploit Assumptions in NAT Tables
17:20 - Why NAT is Everywhere: Hypervisors, Containers, & Cloud
22:29 - Extending Attacks to TCP Connections & Session Hijacking
27:25 - DoS & Port-Scanning Vectors via Router Assignment Habits
30:39 - The Limits of Modern Infrastructure
34:34 - How to Mitigate NATJack: Strong Encryption, RPF, & Sockets
37:48 - Where to Learn More & Closing Remarks