Link Safety, Lightweight AI & Operationalizing Threat Modeling - Nathan Koester

In this episode of the Security Repo Podcast, Nathan Koester shares his path from reverse engineering for the Air Force to building practical security tools for real-world teams. He discusses *Pwnbook.io*, a platform for integrating and visualizing security tools and data, and *Charlemagne Labs*, a local-first browser extension using small language models to detect risky links. The conversation also explores the philosophy behind lightweight AI models, cognitive defense, and staying curious in a fast-evolving field.

https://[pwnbook.io](https://pwnbook.io/)

https://[Charlemagnelabs.ai](https://charlemagnelabs.ai/)

Nathan Koester is an engineer with a diverse background, ranging from forward software development to reverse engineering embedded systems and performing vulnerability assessment.

Nathan’s preferred work focus is leveraging his forward and reverse engineering skills with a red team mindset to provide pen-testing and vulnerability assessment capabilities.