How Two Hackers Are Enhancing Dutch Cyber Resilience Through Red and Black Teaming
Hackers are usually shown as shady figures, working in secret and causing havoc for individuals and companies. However, Tom Wolters and Jan Willem Veldhuis proudly call themselves hackers who help companies increase their cyber resilience. Jan Willem and Tom co-founded AKASEC after working together for a cybersecurity company based in The Hague. With their backgrounds in software development and a specialisation in cybersecurity, they founded AKASEC and are already succeeding in changing the cybersecurity landscape.
Jan Willem previously worked at Dutch Intelligence Services and noticed that “the level of cyber resilience of the Dutch companies was lower than expected.” His previous venture had focused on purple teaming where red (offensive) and blue (defensive) teams work together to enhance cybersecurity capabilities. He quickly concluded that few Dutch companies were at a high enough level of maturity for such in-depth services. Learning from this experience, Jan Willem and Tom knew they could succeed in bringing their red teaming skill sets to Dutch companies. AKASEC’s focus on offensive cybersecurity has already been successful and has proven an appropriate service for Dutch companies looking to enhance their cybersecurity. Tom mentioned that they see themselves “more like a true hacker who can imitate an APT (advanced persistent threat), finding attack scenarios that have a real impact on an organisation.” APTs are undetected once they have gained access to a computer network and can remain there for an extended period of time.
This focus on offensive cybersecurity is because they believe that “every organisation will have a hacker inside of their networks one of these days. If it's not tomorrow, it's next year, or [sometime] soon,” as Tom said. This had led to AKASEC providing offensive cybersecurity services such as red teaming and black teaming. These are when a team of hackers tries to infiltrate an organisation to access their most important assets, also known as their “crown jewels”. Red teaming is when an attack happens under predetermined parameters such as when and sometimes even how the attack will take place. Tom shared that consequently, they have experienced assignments where “all the updates were launched, [Multi-factor authentication] was introduced…because they exactly knew when and how and what [we were doing].” That is why AKASEC also offers black teaming, which focuses on covert cyber operations. Black teaming better simulates a real threat, including going undercover and finding entry points to do a true analysis of a company’s cybersecurity infrastructure. This is not only a valuable resource for companies but something that Tom and Jan Willem truly enjoy doing.
In addition to their work in red and black teaming, Tom and Jan Willem’s extensive software development backgrounds have become a key part of what AKASEC offers. Another offering of AKASEC is secure development for custom applications, which has resulted in them launching their own product, the ZT-ONE phone. This phone, built on a zero trust security framework allows individuals to protect company and state information while travelling abroad. Jan Willem stressed that you are not private, per se, while travelling abroad and roaming. A VPN is not sufficient against greater threats and building a phone with embedded security policies offers a level of security that is necessary to travel safely. AKASEC is already receiving great reviews from customers and are seeing more demand than they anticipated. They want to focus on providing quality services and hiring the right people more than just scaling and growing.
Together with their previous company, Jan Willem and Tom were members of HSD Campus although they were never physically present at the campus. Jan Willem mentioned that they “were always in love with the community,” but not being present made them feel disconnected. When they founded AKASEC just this year, they knew how important it was to set up their first offices at HSD Campus and truly integrate into a premier cybersecurity campus and ecosystem. Being just the two of them, they are always looking for other companies to partner with, as clients regularly ask them for services they do not provide. In their short time at HSD Campus, they are already thrilled by the innovative companies around them and were asked to speak at a meetup by the HSD Campus Manager. They hope to work and network with more companies in the future as Tom was happy to add that “it's easy to collaborate here [at HSD Campus] with like-minded companies.” Tom and Jan Willem can be found at their new home at HSD campus and they are always open to a chat over a coffee.
