Stop Hacklore: when bad advice overshadows good advice

Accompanied by Alexis Dorais-Joncas and 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.

À propos du conférencier

Fanny Tan

Researcher in residence at the Raoul-Dandurand Chair's Observatory on Multidimensional Conflicts

Fanny Tan is a researcher in residence at the Raoul-Dandurand Chair’s Observatory on Multidimensional Conflicts. A master’s student in political science at UQAM, with a bachelor’s degree in digital media (UQAM) and a certificate in video game design (UQAT), Fanny Tan writes regularly on the social issues surrounding new technologies in the media as a freelance journalist and columnist. She is a technology contributor to the program Moteur de recherche (ICI Première) and a member of the privacy protection collective Lab 2038.