Calibrate how you perceive and manage actual risks (with John Opdenakker)

Listen to this episode to learn:

• The importance of cybersecurity in our lives.
• The main characteristic of cyberattacks.
• The importance of using a password manager and how to turn it into a habit.
• How technology can protect us.
• Why cybersecurity can be understood by anyone, regardless of their area of expertise.

A few ideas that stuck with me:

• Anyone can become a victim of cyberattacks: Our entire life is online nowadays, whether we realize it or not. It’s become almost second-nature to us. We’re all users of technology to some extent, and this means we’re also responsible for protecting everything that we put on our devices. Back in the day, we might have thought that only big companies could be hacked. But now, since we’re all connected, we can be victims of random attacks that can erase our entire digital memory, in a second.
• Cybersecurity impacts our decision-making process: Once we become aware of the risks in the virtual world, we start paying more attention to what we do offline. We become more careful with the data we provide to different organizations - such as hotels - and we take measures to better protect our accounts – by using password managers, two-factor authentication or any other methods.
• Cybersecurity should be taught in schools: Kids nowadays were basically born with a smartphone in their hands and many of them don’t understand the concept of security and protecting their data. It’s up to us to teach them the risks and one way we can do that is by introducing the subject into their school curriculums. This can help to raise awareness to a larger public, such as their parents and even grandparents and it can also lead them towards becoming information security specialists themselves. 

About John Opdenakker: 

John started his career as a developer for desktop applications, C++, C-Sharp, and web applications. As time went by, and he built and launched increasingly more web applications, one question in particular concerned him: how could he protect all the apps users’ data against attackers? To find the answer to this, John began to dig deep into the cybersecurity world, thus becoming an expert in this field.

John now tries to raise awareness on this topic by writing and publishing approachable, easy to understand articles on his blog, all on cybersecurity topics. He’s also very active on Twitter, where he tries to answer any question the general public might have and engage other Twitter users in constructive conversations about their data protection habits and perceptions.  

Key Discussion Points:

03:51 - The main reason why most people have a difficult time relating to cybersecurity;

08:17 - What attracted John to the information security industry;

09:35 - Hack Yourself First – how a workshop that helps you see yourself through the eyes of an attacker changed his perception of how vulnerable he was online;

19:26 - What changed in John’s offline behavior, once he started learning more about online security;

23:08 - The importance of using a simple security measure, such as two-factor authentication;

26:33 - How to understand the concept of risk and why risk is important to decision-making regarding security;

32:18 - How to handle decision fatigue, as a cybersecurity professional;

37:13 – How a penetration test (pentest) can be useful for a fact-based perception and management of risk;

40:42 – The reasons we don’t perceive online risks as important to our safety as the offline ones are.

Connect with John:

• LinkedIn
• Blog
• Twitter

Resources mentioned in the episode:

• Workshop: Hack Yourself First

Resources not mentioned in this show but that I created to help you improve your online security:

• this cybersecurity glossary so you can understand what these technical terms are all about 
• this Cybersecurity for Beginners course I created a few years ago with my former team at Heimdal, taken by tens of thousands of people around the world
• The Daily Security Tip: a string of daily, fun emails you can get in your inbox. Get a practical tip each day and a fun GIF to make securing your online stuff anything but boring