Building Security Programs That Actually Scale - with Bonnie Viteri | Secrets of AppSec Champions
Building great security programs takes more than checklists and best practices—it takes vision, collaboration, and adaptability. In this episode, Bonnie Viteri, Principal Technical Security Engineer at Yahoo, shares how to build scalable, resilient programs that evolve, survive leadership turnover, and actually provide value to the business.
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Chapters:
00:00 – Start with the End: Vision-Driven Program Design
01:08 – Meet Bonnie Viteri: From Behavioral Psychology to Cybersecurity
02:10 – Foundation First: Mission, Vision, and Cross-Team Buy-In
04:07 – Designing Security Documents with Developers, Not for Them
06:00 – Metrics, Failure, and the Power of Feedback Loops
08:25 – People, Process, or Tech? Defining the Program Purpose
09:31 – Five-Year Plans and Building for Scale
12:26 – Implementation: Ownership, Handoffs, and Real-World Use
14:15 – Documentation That Survives Team Turnover
16:51 – Centralizing Knowledge and Making It Discoverable
18:30 – Program Optimization Through Onboarding and Culture
20:48 – Keeping Programs Alive via Security Champions & Internal Comms
22:25 – Case Study: API Security Documentation That Worked
25:19 – Reporting Program Value in Business Language
27:03 – Best Advice: "Your Fire Isn’t My Fire"
29:11 – Worst Advice: “You’d Be Bored as a Manager”
29:58 – Final Thoughts: Build, Fail Fast, Pivot Smarter
What You’ll Learn:
- How to build and scale a security program across teams
- Why collaboration and early buy-in matter
- Strategies for long-term documentation and program handoff
- How to connect program value to business language and executive metrics
- Real-world case study of API security success at scale
📺 Watch Next:
- ️ Secrets of AppSec Champions Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/playlist
- ️ Our Customers’ Success Stories & Reviews: https://youtube.com/playlist
- ️ OWASP Top 10 LLM is Dead: Here's Why: https://youtu.be/Wet1tkt1eAw
- ️ Mend.io Product Overview Demo: https://youtu.be/HfZ3uK-Eg5c
- ️ The Truth Behind Successful Security Operations Centers (SOC): https://youtu.be/XMlrxoIJVXg
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📜 Disclaimer:
This video is for educational purposes only. Mend.io is not responsible for any security decisions made based on this content.
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Mend.io, formerly known as Whitesource, has over a decade of experience helping global organizations build world-class AppSec programs that reduce risk and accelerate development -– using tools built into the technologies that software and security teams already love. Our automated technology protects organizations from supply chain and malicious package attacks, vulnerabilities in open source and custom code, and open-source license risks. With a proven track record of successfully meeting complex and large-scale application security needs, Mend.io is the go-to technology for the world’s most demanding development and security teams. The company has more than 1,000 customers, including 25 percent of the Fortune 100, and manages Renovate, the open source automated dependency update project. For more information, visit www.mend.io, the Mend.io blog, and Mend.io on LinkedIn and Twitter.