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| Picture from author |
The Red Hall of the Meervaart Theatre in Amsterdam looks empty in the photo. Just a few minutes later, it was filled with around three hundred employees from the National Collection Centre (LIC) of the Dutch Tax Administration. And that laptop in the picture? That’s mine.
A few
months ago, the organizers of this annual event got excited about my blog
posts. Probably under the slightly risky assumption that “if he can write in an
engaging way, he can probably speak that way too,” they invited me to take part
in the program. So, on Tuesday, I braved the railway strike and headed to the
capital. I had three missions: a presentation in the breakout program before
lunch, a plenary talk in that big hall after lunch, and at the end of the day,
the same story from the morning, but for a different group of about forty
people. The colleagues who came to hear me in Room 9 were 92% women. Someone
like me, from IT and security, rarely sees that many women together in a
work setting. They were a fantastic, engaged audience and gave me a great
glimpse into their world.
I mainly
owed the invitation to my blog
about Girl’s Day. (Quick recap: for a presentation to high school girls, I
googled their names and showed them what I — an amateur in that field — had
managed to find out.) The LIC folks wanted to hear that story too. There was
one difference: on Girl’s Day, my talk was about the girls in the room, while
at the Meervaart, it was about those same girls — so, not about the actual audience
itself (and of course, I didn’t mention any names or overly sensitive details
in either presentation). Still, the tension was visible on the faces in the Red
Hall. Especially the revelation that presentations made with the free version
of PowerPoint alternative Prezi are publicly available online triggered an
audible “Oh!” from the audience. A video showing a
‘psychic’ effortlessly uncovering personal details about his clients wrapped it
up nicely.
My other
presentation was titled Phish & Chats and covered phishing, chat
apps, and artificial intelligence. The first part was a nostalgia trip for
many: “Who of you has never received a phishing email?” No hands. “Hey Dad,
this is my new phone number.” Murmurs in the room. English, with an Indian
accent: “Hello, this is the Microsoft Helpdesk.” Nods all around. Naturally, I
also gave them some tools to recognize phishing — because on a bad day, any
individual employee might be the organization’s last line of defense when a
phishing email lands in their inbox. And in that moment, you really want your
colleague to respond appropriately.
The chat
apps segment covered the pros and cons of various platforms. In short: don’t
use WhatsApp for work due to privacy concerns, and don’t use Telegram at all.
For internal government communication in the Netherlands, Webex is available.
Signal is also an excellent choice.
Artificial
intelligence (AI) also fell under the “Chats” part of Phish & Chats,
because all those handy tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot are smart
chatbots — you can literally chat with them. I discussed how they work, how I
view them from a professional standpoint, and what our organization does and
doesn’t allow (allowed: Copilot Chat; not allowed: all others).
For me, the
day was a warm bath of thumbs-ups, compliments, and thank-yous. And I hope that
those who haven’t yet started reading the Security (b)log will now begin — not
for me, but to become familiar with what’s happening in information security
and their own role in it. Soon, I’ll be visiting a team closer to home, and
after the summer, I’ll be back at our IT auditors’ annual conference.
Yesterday, we discussed potential topics, and I’ll be working on finding a connecting
thread in the coming weeks. In the meantime, I’ll also be a guest on a podcast.
But more on that later.
And in the big bad world…
- your privacy in WhatsApp continues to erode.
- this privacy organization has something to say about that. [DUTCH]
- scammers keep finding new ways.
- the Russians are trying a new form of social engineering.
- old news sometimes stays relevant.
- this ransomware gang operated from a hotel in Thailand.
- even Switzerland struggles with the omnipresent American cloud. [GERMAN]
- you might be using a Chinese VPN app without knowing it.
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