4 ghost stories for developers

Vlad Vidican — Tue, 20 Oct 2026 08:06:24 +0000

It seems like every day, we hear a new story about some security incident, leak, or hack in the news.

And this isn't new, for as long as computers have held sensitive information, that information has been leaked or targeted by malicious people.

So, for this Halloween, I wanted to capture some of the biggest breaches. I think stories are what really drive a point home rather than just numbers in a spreadsheet or chart. Especially spooky stories.

In the video, I cover 4 stories:

But I want to stress something: I don't blame any company or project for these leaks. I don't like the holier-than-thou attitude.

It's very easy to play the blame game and say that those engineers were sloppy and made easily avoidable mistakes. Maybe, but on the other hand, let's think about it like this: what do you need to keep sensitive information secure?

Tools and processes

Processes are the day-to-day things you do (or don't do) to prevent such disasters. Anyone who has worked in a corporate environment knows what it's like to watch hours of training videos about GDPR, HIPAA, PCI compliance etc.

Yes, processes are important, but in the reality of daily business engineers take shortcuts, they make quick "temporary" hacks because they are pressured by the business side of things to do so.

Keeping information safe and secure is not what makes a business money. It's simply a nuisance that businesses have to handle.

So let's look at the tools then. The issue with security tools is that the more secure a tool is, the harder it is to use.

Think about securing your home, you could do either:

A - have a door that you lock

B - have a door that you lock, keep 5 guard dogs, have an alarm system, have security sensors on all doors/windows, have motion sensors in all rooms and outside, have 20 surveillance cameras, hire a security company that places bouncers outside your home.

You get the point. More security, less ease of use.

And when we are working on solving the business problems, we really like ease of use and simple processes, because we are already bombarded with a thousand tasks and need to juggle dozens of (not so easy to use) tools.

Conclusion

I can't help you with the processes, unfortunately.

But maybe I can help you with a tool, a tool to store your application secrets and credentials safely and securely, which is free to use and doesn't require an account.

And I'm really hoping it's as easy to use as possible, so that your story doesn't become a spooky story.

Happy Halloween from Valt0 🎃!

DEV Community: Valt0

4 ghost stories for developers

Tools and processes

Conclusion