Top all-time · #4331
Anvil Secure
Company blog · anvilsecure.com/blog · on HN as santaragolabssecurity
Anvil Secure is the company blog at anvilsecure.com, writing about security. Since 2021, 18 different Hacker News readers have linked it 31 times, most often “DHCP Games with Smart Router Devices”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-08, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (7) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Anvil Secure posts on NAT not being a security boundary (DHCP games with smart routes) and on in-memory userland execution of binaries. Commenters cite them as support for their own points.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 7 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
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Most-linked posts?
- DHCP Games with Smart Router Devices4 people · 8 mentions · first linked 2021-09-02
- Userland Execution of Binaries Directly from Python4 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2022-10-12
- Scanning for Post-Quantum Cryptographic Support2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2025-07-08
- Spoofing Internal Packets for Multihomed Linux Devices2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2024-10-16
- Compromising Garmin Sport Watches: A Deep Dive into GarminOS and Its MonkeyC VM2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-04-22
What Hacker News says?
It's really not and here's some of the multiple methods on which NAT can be bypassed because it's not a security feature: https://www.anvilsecure.com/blog/dhcp-games-with-smart-route... https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc2993#page-22 https://threatpost.com/remote-attackers-internal-network-dev...
Comment linking /blog/dhcp-games-with-smart-router-devices.html
on “40% of Google users now connect via IPv6”Submitted One Bug Wasn't Enough: Escalating Twice Through SAP's Setuid Landscape as a story · 73 points
HN discussionOnly if you trust your ISP: https://www.anvilsecure.com/blog/dhcp-games-with-smart-route...
Comment linking /blog/dhcp-games-with-smart-router-devices.html
on “IPv6 Is Hard”Submitted DHCP Games with Smart Router Devices as a story · 42 points
HN discussionThere isn't any security aspect to NAT, you're relying on the fact nobody's added an upstream route back to you: https://www.anvilsecure.com/blog/dhcp-games-with-smart-route...
Comment linking /blog/dhcp-games-with-smart-router-devices.html
on “Ask HN: If the Internet were redesigned today, what changes would you make?”Submitted DHCP Games with Smart Router Devices as a story · 13 points
HN discussionI'd not be too confident about that, this is a thing that keeps happening: https://www.anvilsecure.com/blog/dhcp-games-with-smart-route...
Comment linking /blog/dhcp-games-with-smart-router-devices.html
on “United States IPv6 adoption over 50%”Submitted Glitching STM32 Read Out Protection as a story · 6 points
HN discussionYou can. Different ways to skin the cat and the memfd trick works fine. However there are other ways of doing it and being more stealthy. See for example https://www.anvilsecure.com/blog/userland-execution-of-binar... . The implementation is on GitHub and rather clean if I may say so myself (am the author).
Comment linking /blog/userland-execution-of-binaries-directly-from-python.html
on “Can I exec a new process without an executable file? (2015)”Submitted HANAlyzer: An Open-Source Tool to Secure Your HANA Databases as a story · 4 points
HN discussionOldie but goodie. I wrote a more modern Python-only version which you can find at: https://www.anvilsecure.com/blog/userland-execution-of-binar...
Comment linking /blog/userland-execution-of-binaries-directly-from-python.html
on “Bugtraq: Userland Exec (2004)”Submitted How We Test AI: LLM and GenAI Security Methodology at Anvil Secure as a story · 3 points
HN discussionIts not harder to do wrong, its just less noticeable when done wrong, it's been a security consideration since NAT was created, and a persistent issue since then: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc2993#page-22 https://threatpost.com/remote-attackers-internal-network-dev... https://www.anvilsecure.com/blog/dhcp-games-with-smart-route...
Comment linking /blog/dhcp-games-with-smart-router-devices.html
on “AWS to start charging for IPv4 usage, but critical services don't support IPv6”Submitted Spoofing Internal Packets for Multihomed Linux Devices as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Userland Execution of Binaries Directly from Python as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Silly proof of concept: Anti-phishing using perceptual hashing algorithms as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Exploiting AQL Injection Vulnerabilities in ArangoDB as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Scanning for Post-Quantum Cryptographic Support as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Scanning for Post-Quantum Cryptographic Support as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Compromising Garmin Sport Watches: A Deep Dive into GarminOS and Its MonkeyC VM as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Compromising Garmin Watches: Deep Dive into GarminOS and MonkeyC Virtual Machine as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Tool: Userland Execution of Binaries Directly from Python as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Userland execution of binaries directly from Python as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Anti-phishing using perceptual hashing algorithms as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted DHCP Games with Smart Router Devices as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Passkey Editor: A Burp Suite Extension for Attacking WebAuthn as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Locked Up but Not Locked Out: iOS App Pentesting Without Jailbreak as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Breaking Sapcar: Four Local Privilege Escalation Bugs in SAR Archive Parsing as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Spoofing Internal Packets for Multihomed Linux Devices as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Vulnerabilities in Homepage Dashboard – Anvil Secure as a story · 1 points
HN discussion