John Gordon
Senior Cybersecurity Risk Analyst,
University of Texas at Austin
Dorkbot: A Decade in Retrospect: Building a Worldwide Web Vulnerability Scanner
Wednesday, April 29, 2026 | 4:00PM–4:45PM PT | California Ballroom B, Second Floor
Session Type:
Breakout Session
Delivery Format:
Presentation/Panel
UT Austin ISO's free Dorkbot web vulnerability scanner service has operated for nearly a decade. It has scanned millions of public webpages and reported hundreds of thousands of verified vulnerabilities to education and state/local government institutions around the world. This session will chronicle our journey to build Dorkbot from a convenience script in pizza parlor antics to a robust, open-source modular framework and fully automated scan cluster that discovers, verifies, and reports vulnerabilities around the world 24/7. Hear about challenges faced and lessons learned while bringing this project to scale. See global stats and graphs from the operations room. Learn how you can start using this software in your own endeavors with a single command and help shape the future of the Dorkbot project with your own unique contributions.