Video: Hackers To The Rescue – Defining Good Hacking

Noci, the fictional city attacked by malevolent hackers during ICON2018, was saved and the challenge was won by a Swiss team. What is a hacker, how do they define themselves? Two members of ICON, a young non-governmental organisation in Geneva, answered that question for Intellectual Property Watch, with the same affirmation: a hacker is first and foremost a curious mind. View the IP-Watch video interviews below.

ICON 2018, “The journey to digital trust”  co-organised by ICON, the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP,) and the MCI group, took place on 13-14 September. The event held what the organisers qualified as the “World premiere cyber-attack simulation.”

Participants came from France, Italy, Norway and Switzerland, selected after a qualifying competition at the global level, according to an ICON press release. In the end, the challenge was won by Swiss participants Team Sw1ss, it said.

“This full-scale simulation exercise of a cyberattack on the most vulnerable targets of a city will enable ICON NGO to draw recommendations for authorities, companies, technical and security services,” the release explained.

“This first experiment will make it possible, through a greenbook, to advance security in cyberspace in order to better protect citizens,” ICON President Lennig Pedron said in the release.

According to ICON, the next steps include “working groups sessions, a preliminary report to propose a recommendation framework, ICON panels at artificial intelligence and cybersecurity events, the launch of the Cyber4Kid kits, sessions with influencing bodies such as the Council of Europe and, last but not least, the launch of a website aimed at detecting cybersecurity breaches or attacks open to every citizen in the world.”

ICON Co-Founder and Technical Director Aris Adamantiadis: “A hacker is a curious guy who wants to learn and discover other ways to use the tools he has”

 

ICON Member Thibault Soubiran: “A ‘white hat’ is an ethical hacker”

 

 

Image Credits: Catherine Saez