The inaugural Armour Group Experience took place at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel in Lincoln on Thursday 17th October. Delivered by specialists in cyber security, social engineering and digital forensics, the day was a glimpse inside the often murky world of online crime, with the aim of empowering attendees with the knowledge they need to keep themselves, their families and businesses safer online.
The event started with the tragic story of Molly Russell, who was just 14 years old when she committed suicide after viewing images of self-harm on Instagram, and online posts encouraging her depressive thoughts. Molly’s father Ian bravely spoke about his struggle to understand the reasons behind the tragedy, his shock at discovering the content Molly had been exposed to online, and his fight to improve online protections, so that Molly’s story cannot be repeated.
Next up was Ross Goodburn from KnowBe4, a platform which simulates phishing attacks to help businesses improve their preparedness for a real cyber attack. Phishing plays a part in 98% of all cyber attacks, and you don’t need huge amounts of money to make it happen - as an individual in Thailand showed when he tricked Google and Facebook, two of the world’s biggest tech companies, into giving up over £100m. KnowBe4 is a valued partner of the Armour Group so were delighted that Ross could join us on the day.
Lilly Fogarty gave a very interesting talk about social engineering, and how hackers exploit optimism and observation bias to trick people. Understanding the way humans think can help people to control the way they think. For example, humans desire social conformity, a fact which has been exploited to great effect not only by hackers, but also by political campaigns such as Vote Leave and Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in recent years.
Lilly fogarty Our next speaker, David Benford of Black Stage Forensics, provided an awe-inspiring fact: every day, we create as much data as we did between the dawn of time and 2013. With so much of this information being open source, potential criminals have more ways than ever to find out about your life. All they would need is data from an exercise app showing where you live, and holiday pictures on social media showing that you are away from home, to know the perfect time to stage a burglary. We must all be more careful about how much of our lives we reveal online.
The inspiring Richard Harris was the next to give a talk. At the age of 70, he is embarking on a mission to row across the Atlantic Ocean. Richard spoke about the importance of resilience: the ability to recover from setbacks and adapt or respond to challenges. The qualities of courage, preparation, determination, discipline, patience, support and self understanding are ones that we could all take on board and apply to our own lives - even if our challenges are slightly less daunting than Richard’s!
Finally, we welcomed special guest Jennifer Arcuri, the founder and CEO of Hacker House. Despite the exponential increase in online data, very few people are equipped to tackle the heightened threat of cyber attacks. Hacker House was created to narrow the skills gap, offering a 12 module course, taught by world-renowned ethical hackers, to encourage talented young people interested in hacking to pursue ethical hacking as a career, rather than turning to black hat hacking.
In between talks, there were opportunities for attendees to try their hand at lock-picking and flying drones, both of which were a big hit with our attendees. Thank you to all who came, and a particularly big thanks to our fantastic speakers and exhibitors who made the day a fabulous success!