Meet Hussam Khrais, Security Engineer at Scout24 and co-creator of “Scanny”
Hussam Khrais has been #WorkingAtScout24 as a Security Manager for almost one and a half years now where he focuses on securing Scout24’s platform by building security scanners. One of these scanners is the recently built “Scanny.” Find out more in this interview.
You are a Security Engineer at Scout24. Since when have you been with Scout24?
Hussam: I have been working at Scout24 since March 1st, 2019.
What are your tasks as a Security Engineer at Scout24?
Hussam: The core job is to secure Scout24’s platform. We do this via building security scanners. We automate findings, ticketing and reporting to developers.
In your experience, what differs working at Scout24 from working at other tech companies?
Hussam: Flexibility since we have the opportunity to present ideas and work on them as long as they add value and solve problems. In other words, you work on your own idea/project which is something that can’t be found everywhere.
You mentioned Scanny. What is Scanny? What is its function?
Hussam: Scanny is slackbot app. It allows engineers to trigger security scan in a specific account, and get the findings back.
How does Scanny work?
Hussam: Scanny is integrated with Slack via REST API and in the background it integrates with many scanners via AWS messaging service.
How did you / the team come up with the idea to create something like Scanny?
Hussam: We listened. Listening to feedback and questions that come from other engineers bring ideas to the table.
What were the challenges you faced during the creation process of Scanny and how did you handle them?
Hussam: We had many overwhelming features and options, and we didn’t know what to build first. Instead of guessing, we set up a discovery meeting with our customers to prioritise what features to release first based on their feedback.
What advice would you have for other security teams working on such issues?
Hussam: My advice would be that they should listen to their customer’s feedback since it is very important.
