While in Louisville for Derbycon this year, a bunch of us hackers (and family members) helped out at a local United Way center with some Security Awareness Training. The point of this training was to assist staff who work predominantly with at-risk women and their families in areas of online safety and general awareness. We let the staff direct the session, and we were pleasantly surprised at the breadth and depth of questions the staff had for us, and the staff was equally surprised to learn that we were not criminals but rather security professionals with a heart using our skills to make the world a safer place. We discussed topics including password safety, online anonymity, social media security, cell phone security and much more.
Because of the sensitive nature of their work, we can’t say much more about what we did, but we were happy to give back to the community and the staff was empowered by what they learned in the session. Each staff member was excited about the potential of the training, saying that the information would go a long way to protect their clients, who are often in dangerous situations and often stalked online.
I’m proud of our little group and look forward to more sessions like this at future conferences.
