ISSA Pittsburgh Chapter Meeting

Hackers Guild is pleased to host the Information Systems Security Association (ISSA) Pittsburgh Chapter for their monthly meeting.

Please RSVP at: https://www.meetup.com/steel-city-infosec/events/314179616/

Featured Speaker:Topic: Authorized but Misaligned: How Agents Manipulate Meaning in Commerce

AI shopping agents are moving into production as Visa, Mastercard, and Google build infrastructure for autonomous purchases projected to reach trillions by 2030. Protocols like AP2, MCP, A2A, and ACP ensure authentication and payment integrity, but correct authorization doesn’t guarantee correct decisions.

Research shows that indirect prompt injection—the top OWASP risk for LLMs and agents in 2025—can steer autonomous shopping agents into unintended purchases even when cryptographic mandates and constraints are fully enforced. Agents act incorrectly while believing they are compliant.

This session reviews the threat landscape, the protocols, residual risks under perfect enforcement, and experimental results from a sandbox isolating this failure mode. As organizations delegate purchasing to agents, the challenge shifts from verifying identity to trusting decision‑quality, with major implications for fraud, liability, consumer trust, and regulation.

About the Speaker:

Devan Rajendran is a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College, specializing in Information Security Policy and Management. His work focuses on cybersecurity, threat analysis, and security governance, with hands‑on experience in threat modeling, intelligence gathering, and application security testing. He is active in CMU’s AI Safety and graduate leadership committees and has academic grounding in network security, cyber intelligence, and software security. Devan also brings research experience, including a distinguished paper award for work in robotics and advanced manufacturing.

ISSA is an international organization focused on supporting the professional development of cybersecurity practitioners and advancing the field of information security. The Pittsburgh chapter provides a forum for local professionals, students, and technology enthusiasts to meet, exchange ideas, and stay informed about current developments in cybersecurity.

Meetings typically include a featured presentation or discussion on a security topic, followed by open conversation and networking. Topics often span a wide range of areas including security engineering, risk management, cloud security, threat intelligence, penetration testing, and emerging challenges in the field.

This event is open to anyone with an interest in cybersecurity. If you are working in the field, exploring career opportunities, studying security, or simply interested in how digital systems are protected, this is an excellent opportunity to connect with others in the regional security community.

We look forward to welcoming the ISSA Pittsburgh Chapter and the broader cybersecurity community to Hackers Guild. Please RSVP at: https://www.meetup.com/steel-city-infosec/events/314179616/

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