Securing the Future: A Roadmap to Making Elixir the Safest Language

ElixirConf · February 15, 2025, 2:00pm

ElixirConf US 2024 - Holden Oullette

Welcome to ElixirConf

Elixir has already shown to be resilient to many forms of insecurity and recommends strong secure defaults, but does that mean it is immune to every security consideration?

Much like there is more to deploying and running an application than just writing code, there are many more considerations to take into account when it comes to Elixir specific security. Security is a non-zero-sum game, where the applications we build and use must be as secure as possible. Otherwise, attackers can compromise our systems, causing harm not only to our customers and businesses but also potentially leading to broader consequences for society as a whole.

From the way we use the language to code our applications to the libraries and build tools we leverage to help us along the way; there is an opportunity for us to further enhance the default state of security in Elixir and improve the selection of security protections available to us along the way to deploying for production.

In this talk, Holden seeks to outline the current state of security deficiencies in the language and the ecosystem as a whole - highlighting some of the hidden “gotchas” of Product Security at scale and calling the community to action with breakdowns of HOW we can go about shoring up the security gaps to make Elixir one of the premiere choices when it comes to secure application development.

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