This year the Youth Global Forum will celebrate its fifth year anniversary. Under the theme of ‘’Industry 5.0 vs Inclusive Development: Where is the future?’’, Ricardo Sanchez Marchand will join our panel of expert speakers for the first time when he will lead a session in ‘’Cybersecurity: Identifying Threats and How to Beat them’’. Ricardo is currently working for Ernst & Young as pentester / ethical hacker. We sat down briefly with Ricardo to get his thoughts on the upcoming Youth Global Forum and to also some advice for the participants ahead of their arrival.
Ricardo, thank you for taking the time to answer our questions. The Youth Global Forum is only weeks away where you will be joining us for the first time as an expert and speaker. Please tell us a little bit about yourself and what brings you to the Youth Global Forum this year?
Yes, I know. I am very excited. My name is Ricardo, I’m was born in Mexico but I have already lived in four different countries ( UK, Spain, Mexico and The Netherlands) so I consider myself a product of the globalization.
I’m an engineer with a lot of experience in Software and Marketing. I accidentally created a company around 8 years ago. I built a little robot that finds and classifies the best promotions of restaurants and bars in a specific area which grew alot. I ended up with 6 offices in two countries. I sold the company to my ex-partner and moved to Europe to follow my career as a full-time hacker.
I have three Masters (Strategic direction, financial administration and Cybersecurity) Is also interesting to know that I have two international patent applications as the Main inventor and I co-authored two books.
Nowadays you need to protect everything, money, power grids, dams, information, governments,etc.
What attracted you to be a part of the Youth Global Forum in Amsterdam this year?
I feel that I am still young or youngish at least. I lived what a lot of the attendants are living so my hope is to help someone with my experience.
Your workshop will centre on Cybersecurity. This is obviously something that is constantly evolving and developing on an almost daily basis. What are some of the hot topics in the world of cybersecurity at the moment and what impact are they having / will they have on our society today and in the future?
Wow! That is a very complicated question. The main topic is the connectivity. The situation now is that the connectivity is growing for people, organizations and things. As an example, hospitals are accessible to the internet. That was not a thing 15 years ago. The problem is that you need to protect them and not only the hospitals. You need to protect everything, money, power grids, dams, information, governments, etc, etc.
Other interesting topics are malware, cyber-war, cryptocurrencies (I am a big fan), cloud security, information security and privacy, artificial intelligence, etc.
We cannot keep living like the world is not changing.
What can participants expect to learn from your workshop at the Youth Global Forum and do have any words of advice that can help them prepare for what is to come?
I will start by explaining them the evolution of threats. It’s a super interesting topic. It is amazing how cybersecurity went from being a super geek thing to a necessity for everyone.
The second part of the workshop will be an explanation of how a hacker “hack” and how you should protect yourself and your organization.
The third part is the live demos. I will show them how a hacker can create a fake Facebook/google to harvest your credentials via WIFI. I will explain to them how a USB can be modified to execute malicious programs. The third part of the demonstration is how a mini-pc of 10 USD can be used to steal credentials or files of a computer and finally, this part will end with how to send secure emails that will be protected. If we have time I will show them how to access de dark web.
I think the most important part is the questions so I a big part of the time will allocate it to that.
What importance do you place on youth’s involvement in the field of cybersecurity? Do you think more awareness or education is needed among the international youth community in regards to cybersecurity or are you satisfied with youth involvement and interest?
I think that people in general but especially the youth (because we will live more time in the mess if we don’t start caring more).
We need to know our digital rights and understand the situation. Is not better or worse is just different. We cannot keep living like the world is not changing. We need to start guiding the changes and not just following what others dictate.
