Elusive Thoughts

Claude Code Hooks: The Deterministic Security Layer Your AI Agent Needs > APPSEC_ENGINEERING // CLAUDE_CODE // FIELD_REPORT Claude Code Hooks: The Deterministic Security Layer Your AI Agent Needs CLAUDE.md rules are suggestions. Hooks are enforced gates. exit 2 = blocked. No negotiation. If you're letting an AI agent write code without guardrails, here's how you fix that. // March 2026 • 12 min read • security-first perspective Why This Matters (Or: How Your AI Agent Became an Insider Threat) Since the corporate suits decided to go all in with AI (and fire half of the IT population), the market has changed dramatically, let's cut through the noise. The suits in the boardroom are excited about AI agents. "Autonomous productivity!" they say. "Digital workforce!" they cheer. Meanwhile, those of us who actually hack things for a living are watching these agents get deployed with shell access, API keys, and service-l...

Claude Safety Guide for Developers (2026) — Securing AI-Powered Development Application Security Guide — March 2026 🛡️ Claude Safety Guide for Developers Securing Claude Code, Claude API & MCP Integrations in Your SDLC 📑 Contents Why This Guide Exists The AI Developer Threat Landscape in 2026 Real-World CVEs: Claude Code Vulnerabilities Understanding Claude Code's Permission Model Prompt Injection: Attack Vectors & Defences MCP (Model Context Protocol) Security AI Supply Chain Risks Claude API Safety Best Practices Claude Code Hardening Checklist Integrating Claude Security into CI/CD Compliance Considerations (SOC 2, GDPR, AI Act) Resources & References 1. Why This Guide Exists AI-powered development tools have moved from novelty to necessity. Anthropic's Claude ecosystem — spanning Claude Code (terminal-based agentic coding), Claude API (programmatic integration), and the broader Model Context Protocol (MCP) integrati...

Introduction  This article is going to focus on Smart Contract upgradability, why this important and how can we achieve it. When dealing with Smart Contracts we need to be able to upgrade our system code. This is because if security critical bugs appear , we should be able to remediate the bugs. We would also want to enhance the code and add more features. Smart Contract upgradability is not as simple as upgrading a normal software due to the blockchain immutability.   As already mentioned by design, smart contracts are immutable. On the other hand, software quality heavily depends on the ability to upgrade and patch source code in order to produce iterative releases. Even though blockchain based software profits significantly from the technology’s immutability, still a certain degree of mutability is needed for bug fixing and potential product improvements.   Preparing for Upgrades    In order to properly do the upgrade we should be focusing in the followi...

INTRODUCTION  Ethereum Smart Contracts and other complex blockchain programs are new, promising and highly experimental. Therefore, we should expect constant changes in the security landscape, as new bugs and security risks are discovered, and new best practices are developed [1].  This article is going to focus on threat modeling of smart contract applications. Threat modelling is a process by which threats, such as absence of appropriate safeguards, can be identified, enumerated, and mitigation can be prioritized accordingly. The purpose of threat model is to provide contract applications defenders with a systematic analysis of what controls or defenses need to be included, given the nature of the system, the probable attacker's profile, the most likely attack vectors, and the assets most desired by an attacker.  Smart contract programming requires a different engineering mindset than we may be used to. The cost of failure can be high, and change can be difficult, ...

Introduction Cyber criminals are increasingly using automated SQL injection attacks powered by botnets and AI-assisted tooling to hit vulnerable systems. SQL injection remains the most reliable way to compromise front-end web applications and back-end databases, and it continues to hold its position in the OWASP Top 10 (ranked as A03:2021 — Injection). Despite decades of awareness, the attack surface keeps expanding — not shrinking. But why does this keep happening? The answer is straightforward: we are living in an era of industrialized hacking . SQL injection attacks are carried out by typing malformed SQL commands into front-end web application input boxes that are tied to database accounts, tricking the database into offering more access than the developer intended. The reason for the sustained prevalence of SQL injection is twofold: first, criminals are using automated and manual SQL injection attacks powered by botnets, professional hackers, and now AI-driven fuzzing tools t...