“We're making young hackers more aware of cybersecurity and online ethics”

DIVD Academy

"The internet has many vulnerabilities that enable cybercriminals to target organisations. So, back in September 2019, Victor Gevers, Chris van 't Hof and I established the Dutch Institute for Vulnerability Disclosure (DIVD), a voluntary organisation that detects and reports vulnerabilities in digital systems," explains Astrid. "Since then, we've noticed an increasing number of young people showing an interest in our work. That ultimately led to us setting up the DIVD Academy: a vehicle for boosting knowledge, skills and ethical awareness, and for securing young talent."

Ethical Hacking

"Many young people have digital skills, but don't necessarily know the ethical way to deal with what they encounter online. As a result, they sometimes find themselves the wrong side of the law," continues Astrid. "By increasing awareness of the relevant issues, we hope to bring down the number of potential cyber-delinquents. To help us achieve that goal, we applied to SIDN Fund for help starting up a project called Ethical Hacking. One element of the project involved working with HackShield Future Cyber Heroes to develop a hacking module for youngsters aged 8 to 12, with a series of lessons explaining what is and isn't allowed online. It's a playful way of educating the next generation of hackers."

Digital resilience

SIDN Fund's Mieke van Heesewijk explains why the Fund is pleased to back the initiative. "We're supporting the DIVD Academy's Ethical Hacking Project in order to promote awareness of cybersecurity and online ethics amongst young hackers. Through our support, we're contributing to the development of a new generation of ethical hackers who operate within the law. That has the knock-on effect of increasing the digital resilience of society as a whole."

Young hackers

"In collaboration with the police, the public prosecutor and hackerspaces, we organise various meetings and workshops for young people aged 13 to 18," adds Astrid. "At the gatherings, we share our cybersecurity knowledge and talk about the boundaries of hacking. The idea is to get young people to think critically about their decisions. Just because you're able to do something doesn't mean that you should do it. Suppose that a young hacker wants to remove a photo from someone else's phone, because that other person isn't supposed to have it. Your intentions may be good -- helping a girlfriend, for example. But is it the right thing to do? That kind of thing is against the law, so if you go ahead, you may find yourself in hot water. We also teach young people the correct way to report any vulnerabilities that they discover. How do you let a server's operator know about an issue, and get them to take you seriously?"

Training company

As Astrid explains, the DIVD Academy has now become a training company. "A lot of students were asking about doing internships with us. Most were young hackers with bicultural backgrounds, who had encountered discrimination when trying to get placements. That was a big deal for them, because vocational secondary schools used not to allow students to do the next year of their courses until they had done an internship. So quite a few students ended up not completing their courses. In many cases, they were kids with bags of potential, so we wanted to try to help them. A group of vocational secondary school students have since done their internships with us, and progressed to higher vocational courses. And all the higher vocational students say they'd like to come back. So naturally we're quite proud of how it's all gone."

Support from SIDN Fund

"SIDN Fund's financial support was very important in terms of getting the project up and running," says Astrid. "It enabled us to develop the primary school module in partnership with HackShield, and to hire a project manager who supervised a group of youngsters once a week. Ethical Hacking began small, but is growing rapidly. We now do a lot in partnership with other organisations, and we're forging ties with local authorities, the police and the prosecution service, all with the aim of helping young people stay the right side of the law."