Spotlight - David Thejl-Clayton

Vi vil nu bringe endnu et post i vores serie om FDCA’s advisory board. I dette interview vil vi forsøge at komme lidt nærmere på David.

Citaterne fra David vil være på engelsk, da dette er hans modersmål.

David er en stor kapacitet indenfor blue-teaming, og er et kendt navn indenfor det danske Cyber community. David arbejder nu for Elastic, og har før siddet hos Combitech og JN Data. Han er også kendt for sit frivillige arbejde. bla. har han for nyligt grundlagt SagaSecurity.

Jeg spurgte David hvordan han forstår ordet Cyber, da det er et begreb som han næsten har tatoveret på sine knoer.

Cyber is a term loosely thrown around, I think no one really knows what it means anymore, I mean what is the difference between cyber and information security?

For me my definition of Cyber security is looking at the complexity of the interconnected tech world that we live in, and understanding how we defend this. But we don’t make it any easier for ourselves by having so many buzzwords and acronyms. Even just defining what Cyber is has become really difficult. We just love making security sound more complicated than it actually is.

Der er ingen tvivl om at kendskab til fagbegrebberne, er en af de helt store barriere vi står overfor. Men imellem alle de forkortelser og alt den slang, hvordan ser den underliggende sikkerhed så ud ifølge David?

In my honest opinion and experience after working in this country for many years and being part of a lot of projects within defending critical infrastructure. Denmark is slightly behind the rest of Europe, and I think that there is a good reason for that.

I think it has something to do with the trust that Denmark has incorporated in its culture. You can leave your wallet on the train, and chances are that someone will help you and return it. One of the reasons that I love Denmark is exactly this trust. I trust my neighbour to a point where I can forget to lock my door at night, without needing to worry. I think that this trust in society has extended into the digital world but unfortunately here it isn’t my neighbour who is going to come in through my unlocked door.

To solve this we need to change society to understand this, we have to bake Security into the culture, and even teach it to our kids- how to be safe in this crazy interconnected world.

I said that Denmark is behind other European countries but I do see positive changes coming, more people are paying attention, to the point where we have Cyber journalists in this country reporting on local and international issues. That shows that the general public is becoming more interested in the subject of cyber security.

David er uden tvivl dybt fokuseret på sikkerheds problemstillingen, og dette kommer blandt andet til udtryk gennem hans omfattende involvering i frivilligt arbejde. Hvorfor har David så valgt at bruge sin tid på en nystartet forening som FDCA?

For a long time I was doing lots of different things, like lectures at multiple education institutions, conference talks, panel interviews, workshops and many other things. I loved it, but I was spreading myself very thin and I couldn’t keep up. In FDCA I found a group where I could focus on a single entity and still have a big impact.

Being able to see how hard this crew is working to better themselves and working towards one of their overall goals to improve cyber security within Danish society is just so awesome. I am so humbled to witness the FDCA crew take on these ideas that I have had in the past but didn’t have the time or creativity to fully carry them to completion, and see them not only complete them but exceed my wildest expectations. I mean look at SagaLabs, this platform was just a dream of mine in the past and now what FDCA is creating is something special! That is why you maybe don’t see me doing as many talks anymore, because I feel like I have found an outlet where I can have the biggest impact.

Hos FDCA er vi helt vildt taknemmelig for Davids arbejde. David har lagt et utal af timer i denne her forening, og har sin finger i samtlige af vores projekter. Han sidder altid klar til at spare og rådgive. Ikke blot til foreningens medlemmer, men til alle der har et behov for inspiration. Davids indflydelse på det danske sikkerhedsmiljø kan ikke overdrives, og vi glæder os til at blive inspireret i det kommende år.