Free Test – Trondheim, Norway

Interview with Øystein Sekse Øie

by Jørgen Austvik and Tor Stålhane

Øystein started working with testing in Kantega one and a half year ago. He came straight from university (NTNU, Trondheim and University of Queensland, Brisbane), where he focused on security and safety. His first assignment in his new job was thus security testing, along with performance testing - and now he is stuck.

During his studies, Øystein didn't see much focus on testing, although there are some signs of improvement in this area now. Customers have a varied view on testing; some think it is an added expense that they don't need, while others see it as an added value. It is easier to sell testing to customers with projects that will live in production for a long time. In addition, there is an increasing demand for security testing as web solutions become more and more advanced and business critical.

Øystein likes the way testing increases the quality of the product or delivery, and "loves it" when dedicated testers find issues that the developers haven't thought about. However, when projects slide and you get included too late in the project, testing can be a hard job.

In his presentation, Øystein will introduce us to the most common security vulnerabilities and tell us about free tools that he uses. The presentation is geared against testers - so that that we know what to look for, and developers - so that they can avoid doing the mistakes in the first place.

When Øystein doesn't hunt nasty security bugs, he likes to hunt birds and moose. Stay calm though - he will, however, not present any tools for his off-duty hunts.