Before we start this post … please click this link, go on … I said please !
In 2013, it was one of those mornings when I hadn’t slept well and I was browsing Twitter. I came across a post from yet another criminal posting out how he had hacked a hospital and stolen some data. So I clicked the link to Pastebin, but what I found was not a hospitals data but the data of people whose children were sick.
Maybe 45 seconds later I was at the keyboard furiously typing away digging, delving, finding out who had been attacked,why, by whom … when I am in the land of cyber, I tend to focus slightly more than usual and about 2 hours later, I had worked out that the criminal hacking a hospital was far from the truth.
The reality was that a script kiddie team (people who run scripts without knowing what they are doing) had run an automated scan (a pre-written tool to find vulnerable sites) then clicked GO to extract any data it could find. Their target however was not a hospital, it was a tiny charity.
By lunchtime, I had spoken with a very understandably upset owner of the charity but I vowed to fix this, help them and protect them. Now in the line of work I was in then, I had to make sales. Yet here I am giving up my Sunday to help. Sunday disappeared with Pastebin takedown requests, as well as other sites to get this data offline. All the time, keeping careful notes as to what I had done, the order of things etc.
I got to work on Monday shattered and immediately set one of the security team to identify where the problems lay. It took maybe 48 hours and Hypopara UK were back in healthy shape, data removed from the internet and back operational as a charity.
I knew, however, something was different now – it helped me realise why I am in this industry. Have a read here :
LINK
What I didn’t know was how far-reaching this experience has been. I lost my job in the July and spent a long time unemployed trying to find a company that met my values. Nearly six months later, I found it. I now work for a not-for-profit helping people get jobs in cyber security… and there it is… give back.
Probably the most important thing I have achieved in my whole life… the realisation that you can’t keep taking and that you have to give back. My journey started with Hypopara UK.
On the birthday last year of Hypopara UK, I arranged for a security test with an amazing company TeraByte IT and I know the offer is always there for future security testing for them as the guys over there are just so lovely.
But my journey continues and with each event I host and am involved with I am exposed to more people who are lost, feeling helpless due to their situation and I help them. I now mentor rookies (help out the new people in our industry) at security conferences and the list goes on.
All this philanthropy comes from Hypopara UK … an amazing team of people who give up their time tirelessly to help raise awareness of Hypoparathyroidism (even after all this time I can still remember the word – maybe not the spelling!). I have seen this amazing organisation bounce back from a very serious attack and instead of collapsing, have met the attacker head on, like so many parents and children who are affected by this condition and instead of just giving up, find the energy to grow day by day.
1st June – World Hypopara Awareness Day
Massive thanks to :
- Liz Glenister – Chief Executive of Hypopara UK. For your amazing work and determination to get through a difficult time and to grow your brilliant team going forward.
- Craig Lawson – for being my helping in securing them and giving up your time to help with the initial diagnosis and remediation – legend as always.
- Give01Day – Amar Singh you run an amazing initiative helping charities. Thank you for helping sort out their free pen test on their birthday.
- Marcus Dempsey – for being amazing and doing a free pen test, something most organisations wouldn’t even entertain. Thank you.
- TeraByte IT – for just being a totally awesome company
and finally you … I hope I have inspired you to help donate to Hypopara UK, if not cash to help support them, maybe reach out via myself to see what you can do to help. Volunteer? Secure their site? Pen Test them? Donation? How can you make a difference today.
So to Liz and the team, I appreciate your nod to me from 2013, but I also want to say a massive thank you back for helping me to develop as an individual, to grow and become a better person. You know where I am if you ever need any help, I now have a massive army of people I can draw upon to help support you in the future.
Kind Regards
Stuart Coulson
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