Conferences

Stop Hacklore: when bad advice overshadows good advice

Accompanied by Fanny Tan, Jean-Philippe Décarie-Mathieu

Does a single day go by without a new cybersecurity incident making headlines? Another leak of personal information, another organization falling victim to ransomware, a supposedly revolutionary technique that bypasses the most advanced security systems… And each time, these news stories are accompanied by advice intended to help prevent such attacks.

This advice is generally good in itself. However, some more questionable or downright harmful comments persist in the public sphere. To counter this trend, former Yahoo and DNC CISO Bob Lord launched the “Stop Hacklore” campaign, endorsed by a hundred renowned cybersecurity experts.

A combination of “hacking” and “folklore,” the campaign aims to separate myth from reality and avoid dramatic advice worthy of the best James Bond films, refocusing the discourse on actions that will have a real positive impact on the security of the identities and devices of “ordinary people,” all based on facts and concrete data.

This presentation is intended to be a discussion of these famous myths and the role we can all play as cybersecurity experts in spreading appropriate advice.

About the speaker

Alexis leads the team of researchers responsible for protecting the clients of his employer, Proofpoint, against state cyber espionage. Before getting to this point, he spent a long time studying computer science and more or less bored his friends with his incessant conversations about technology. Today, he makes it a point of honor to popularize cybersecurity and make this complex field accessible to as many people as possible. Alexis also writes a regular column on cybersecurity for Protégez-vous.