When he studied Cyber security at Twente University, Olaf (26) came across Challenge the Cyber, which is a Capture the Flag-hacking competition. It is organised by the National Cyber Security Center and research and education platform dcypher, which is aimed at cyber security talent in the ages of 13 to 25. ‘Our team won the first Dutch edition in 2019. Next, we were on our way to Bucharest to compete for the European title in the Palace of the Parliament. But that didn’t go very well’, he smiles. ‘We were sixteenth, out of twenty teams. Still, it was so much fun and we learnt so much, that I decided to join the organisation on a voluntary basis as an organiser. Our goal is to make the group of young cyber security talent bigger and more diverse, and offer them the means to excel.’ Olaf is part of the Incident Response Team of Deloitte Cyber Risk Services. ‘Cyber criminals are always lying in wait. That’s why cyber security is mandatory in order to protect your business, clients, and data. If things go wrong and criminals have gotten to a company online, locked its files and systems, or stolen sensitive information, our team immediately takes action. We figure out if the attacker is still in the network, what needs to be done to go back to normal, and what steps need to be taken in order to offer protection’, Olaf explains. ‘It’s a challenging and exciting job. I’m on one laptop, trying to protect a business in all kinds of ways, while on another laptop there’s a criminal who is up to no good! That’s why it’s so fulfilling. The impact of a hack can be huge. It’s great to be able to help clients in this way.’

During a cyber bootcamp that Olaf organised for Challenge the Cyber, Deloitte was invited to host a workshop on cyber risk management and one on hardware hacking. ‘From the start, I was deeply impressed. The people from Deloitte were very professional, capable, open and sociable. The energy and enthusiasm with which they joined this event were amazing. I reckoned this had to be a fun place to work. One thing led to another and so I started at Deloitte on the 1st of January of this year.’ Still, it’s not that easy for hackers to have such a big impact on a company. ‘They have to take several steps before they can actually do the hacking. I’m in the Incident Response Team, but we also track hackers proactively’, Olaf says passionately. ‘We conduct a critical audit of the entire IT network of a company to see if there are any hackers in the network already, before there’s an incident. Also, some of our colleagues are specialised in security monitoring (SOC). They try to “trap” hackers. If a hacker comes too close, there’s an alert that will trigger them to find out what is going on.’

Next to incident response, Olaf is involved in the Capture the Flag competitions on behalf of Deloitte. ‘We are developing the Hackazon platform for hacking competitions. Recently, we launched the Hacky Holidays [https://hackyholidays.io/] for Deloitte professionals as well as students and professionals from outside Deloitte. After all, hacking competitions are a perfect way to create excitement in this field of expertise, and to challenge each other. For me, it’s a playing ground where we pay attention to the latest technologies such as cloud security, and quantum computing combined with cryptography. You can try out new things and keep yourself interested. After all, the slogan in our field of expertise is “learning by hacking”. If you like figuring things out, and if you have a logical mind set and technical expertise, this is a fun way to start in the field of cyber security. And I can tell you that there’s never a dull day. My heart rate still increases when we are close to the digital flag.’ Read more about Challenge the Cyber. [https://challengethecyber.nl/]

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