Ladies Hacking Society (LHS)

Northumbria Police’s Claire Vandenbroecke and Charlotte Knill from the Force’s Cyber Crime Unit have joined the North East LHS Team for a triple treat!

We met Claire at the NELHS Ade Lovelace day and we wanted to invite the Nercuu back to tell us more about what they do. Claire and Charlotte usually deliver bespoke training to businesses, advising them on how to keep their systems secure, as well as working with young people with highly specialised digital skills and they’ve joined NELHS in a special three-part podcast to share their expertise.

The series covers everything from why you should be using two-factor authentication on your apps, to how tricks and jokes adopted by gamers could see them falling foul of the law.

Charlotte said: “CyberCrime is an area of policing which is constantly evolving and changing and it is on us as a Force to adapt and make sure our staff and officers have the relevant skills to deal with offences such as ransomware attacks and hacks to phishing scams and frauds as well as sexual offences like online exploitation.

“Cybercrime is ultimately something we can’t arrest our way out of, even if we had all the resources in the world. The best way we can tackle cybercrime is to prevent the offences from taking place in the first instance. “A large part of my role is working with young people and getting them to understand that cybercrime is not a victimless crime – an attack on a small business for example could be devastating and have serious consequences for the owner’s livelihood.

“Steering teenagers away from cybercrime and showing them the vast array of jobs in the industry is a simple but effective way of preventing them using their skills in an unethical and teaching them about the Computer Misuse Act.

In Claire’s world of Cyber Protect and Prepare, businesses, organisations and charities are being issued with practical advice to block unsolicited attempts to gain access.

“A lot of what I cover in the podcast is what I’m sharing with businesses on a daily basis. They’re really simple and straightforward tips from making sure your passwords are strong – we advise using three random words or a password generator which you can find online, to use two-factor authentication for your apps, as well as basic house-keeping like ensuring all your systems are up to date so no weaknesses can be exploited.”

*** This podcast has EXCELLENT audio quality ***

This episode of the Ladies Hacking Society podcast is a Member Spotlight, where we chat to some of our LHS superstar members. Our first edition features Reg Bluman and Dan Dees!

Dan and Reg join Helen and new London Chapter host, Megan Pentecost, to chat about their roles in cyber, how they got into the field, and their best bits about LHS. We’re so pleased they joined us and we think you’ll love hearing their stories too! 

Every episode we ask our guests to name a cyber hero to recognise and celebrate and we ask them for ONE person, group or organisation to highlight… but our guests always seem to sneak bonuses in :-)

Here are this episode’s cyber heroes - we completely agree, they are all amazing!