From NSA to PHP: Rob Seger's Quest to Secure the Web at its Source

In this episode, MailChannels CEO Ken Simpson sits down with Rob Seger, CTO of Monarx and former NSA engineer, to explore how malware actually spreads across the internet from shared hosting environments

Rob shares what he learned at the NSA, why attackers always win, and why the blast radius of a single false positive can take down a million websites. This episode dives into the hidden mechanics of web-based attacks, PHP’s dark corners, symbolic AI, and the economic forces shaping cybersecurity today.

If you work in hosting, cybersecurity, devops, or run a SaaS platform, this conversation is a must-watch.

00:00 The blast radius of a single false positive
01:00 What Rob learned at the NSA
02:00 Tackling infinite problem spaces in cybersecurity
04:20 Defense vs offensive mindset
07:10 The economics behind cybersecurity
09:00 What Monarx actually does
11:00 Why shared hosting is filled with hidden malware
17:00 How Monarx hooks into PHP to detect malicious behavior
25:00 Symbolic AI vs modern ML
32:00 Scaling malware detection to billions of files
40:00 Why hosting providers can’t stop outbound spam
45:00 Final thoughts and industry insights


✅✉️ MailChannels builds email security products for hosting providers to give users a more secure, more reliable email experience.

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Tags: cybersecurity, hosting security, malware detection, PHP vulnerabilities, WordPress security, shared hosting, symbolic AI, machine learning, Monarchs, MailChannels, spam prevention, malware cleanup, CTO interview, developer podcast, tech podcast, NSA cybersecurity