Have you ever been hacked? Learn how to stay safe online with cybersecurity specialist Vannessa Van Beek

Have you ever been hacked? Are you worried about your data privacy? Do you know someone who has been unscrupulously scammed and lost money, lost data and basically lost their trust in the cyber world?

Cyber security is a growing concern for everyday people like you and me, as well as every organisation and government body - costing millions in our economy.

Cybersecurity specialist Vannessa Van Beek joins us to help us learn how to protect ourselves online.  

Vannessa was a finalist for Australia’s most outstanding woman in protective security, has been awarded Women in Tech WA’s Outstanding Senior Leader Award, named a Rising Star in the Cyber Community Awards and led the WA Cyber Awards Security Operations Team of the Year. 

Vannessa holds a law degree, an MBA, and postgraduate qualifications in psychology, as well as a string of cyber security credentials.  With her unique psych and cyber lens, Vannessa provides invaluable insights into why and where human behaviour and cyber risk meet. 

So there is no one better to give us some crucial online tips.

 Warm thanks to:
Sponsor: Females Over Forty-five Fitness in Victoria Park
Sound Engineering: Damon Sutton
Music: William A Spence
... and all our generous and inspiring guests around the warm table this season!

Transcript

Sonia Nolan: 0:00

Welcome to My Warm Table. I'm Sonia Nolan and season two of this podcast about passion and purpose is brought to you by Females Over 45 Fitness or FOFF in Victoria Park.

Introductory Voice Over of Previous Guests: 0:13

My name is Kate Chaney. My name is Bonnie Davies. My name is Madeleine King. My name is Valerio Fantinelli. My name is Lyn Beazley. My name is Alexandra Helen Flanagan Hi, my name is Sharon Todd. My name is Lucy Cooke and I'm the CEO of SpaceDraft. I'm the first Aboriginal female funeral director. CEO and founder of Motion by the Ocean. I'm a psychologist and a professor in psychology at Curtin University. CEO and founder of Lionheart Camp for Kids. Around My Warm Table. Or listening on Sonia Nolan's My Warm Table. Just sharing a yarn with her.

Sonia Nolan: 0:37

Have you ever been hacked? Are you worried about your data privacy? And does the word phishing mean something more to you than seafood? Well, if your warm table is like mine, then you may well have consoled a friend who's been unscrupulously scammed and lost money, lost data and basically lost their trust in the cyber world. Cyber security is a growing concern for everyday people like you and me, as well as every organisation and government body. In fact, cyber attacks are costing the WA economy at least $150 million a year. So today around the Warm Table, we're going to demystify a little of the cyber world and understand how we can better protect ourselves. I'm so delighted to be joined by Vannessa Van Beek an old friend from my early 20s and a woman I've admired and watched with or as her career trajectory has seen her become one of Australia's most trusted advisors and leaders in cybersecurity and cyber risk. It's been a golden year for Vannessa as she has rightly been acknowledged by her industry peers. Being a finalist for Australia's Most Outstanding Woman in protective security being awarded Women in Tech WA's Outstanding Senior Leader award named a Rising Star in the Cyber Community Awards and leading the WA Cyber Award Security Operations Team of the Year. Have I missed anything? No. It's been a big year. Vannessa holds a law degree and MBA and postgraduate qualifications in psychology as well as a string of cyber security credentials. With her unique Psych and cyber lens, Vannessa provides invaluable insight into why and where human behaviour and cyber risk meet. So there is no one better to give us some crucial online tips. Welcome around the Warm Table, Vannessa.

Vannessa Van Beek: 2:28

Thank you, Sonia. Thanks for having me.

Sonia Nolan: 2:30

It's an absolute pleasure. And Vannessa, I want to start with that unique combination of all of those amazing skills and experiences that you bring law, business, psychology, cybersecurity, and that sort of junction where they meet. Tell me about your, your career journey to get there.

Vannessa Van Beek: 2:51

Well, I studied law and law was a really great framework for making decisions. And then when I graduated, I found there were quite a lot of competition, getting into legal firms for articles. And I decided to go with a Graduate Programme at Telstra and joined the information superhighway back there, helping organisations actually change their environments from legacy technology to more digital technology. And I spent probably about 20 years working with Telstra, relationship managing customers and helping them with their journeys as they changed and got on board a lot of new digital technologies. And from there, I navigated into security, which has really been something I've been very passionate about, about how do we secure the digital environments that that organisations build. And for me, leading is about people. And as I became more senior in my roles, I realised the thing I needed to influence most was people. Changing human behaviour is really difficult. So I went back to uni and did the postgraduate study in organisational psychology, really, to help implement change and to work with teams in the workplace to create psychologically safe environments to do really great work. And that's been my great passion is working with great technology, great people. And the intersection of those is how we build trusted environments for business.

Sonia Nolan: 4:21

And that's exactly perfectly aligned, isn't it, Vannessa? Because this understanding of human behaviour is so important. I read somewhere that the weakest link in cybersecurity isn't actually the machine. It's actually the human.

Vannessa Van Beek: 4:36

It's the human.

Sonia Nolan: 4:37

It's the human. And most of the largest data breaches over the past few years have happened because someone has fallen for a phishing scam. Is that right?

Vannessa Van Beek: 4:46

Correct. Yeah, so, phishing scams are really a very big issue for people. And it's actually very easy to fall victim of a phishing scam. Because people designing those scams are are actually targeting human behaviour and weakness and focusing on urgency and tailoring those campaigns based on little bits of information that they can find out about you. So it seems almost natural to click on a link or to provide information. So yeah, it's, it's very- and the other big thing around the human component is human error. And even in the design of networks, and how we build them, and architect them, if we get a configuration wrong, or we don't close a port or something like that happens, that then allows people to get into environments and then move within environments. That's called feeding off the land. And then they position themselves to escalate privileges to get close to the data that's really important to exfiltrate it. So yeah, behind all major breaches, is a human component. So while cybersecurity is a technical field, the biggest thing we need to influence, is creating the right environment for our teams to do great work, but also influencing the behaviour of human eye, mums and dads, organisations, executives, how do we keep people safe? How do we encourage people not to use their work email for you know, ordering things at work related to their personal lives, because they might be sharing passwords, and then that then puts organisations at risk. So I do a lot of work with execs to, you know, to educate them about how to be cyber safe, because they're targeted, because they are the people organisations are targeting because they have the most privileged information, the information about financial records, they hold a lot of access and sensitive information that would be prized for for other people to get.

Sonia Nolan: 6:53

Yeah. And it's so easy because of course, we carry our work in our telephone, don't we, and our mobile phones that we carry everywhere. We've got access to our work emails and access to some other work portals. So it's really important to keep everything so safe. So what are some of the strategies that you sort of recommend?

Vannessa Van Beek: 7:11

The first one is pause.

Sonia Nolan: 7:12

Yes, that's a big one isn't it?

Vannessa Van Beek: 7:14

It's a really big one. You know, we all live such busy, frantic hectic lives. We're all juggling, you know, our work career, the demands of our family life, our extracurricular activities. And just click it.

Sonia Nolan: 7:32

Because it says immediate action.

Vannessa Van Beek: 7:37

Because it requires immediate action.

Sonia Nolan: 7:40

Urgent.

Vannessa Van Beek: 7:41

But my advice is to slow down to pause. And for any major kind of decisions, relating any financial transactions, to actually do them when you're in your own home environment. Try and leave 24 hours between something arriving and actually making a decision. Don't do anything too fast. So yeah, it's almost countercultural. But my first advice is to pause to slow down. And you'll see that particularly around, you know, the big sales that happened at Christmas time, the big sales that happen with- in America, it's a Black Friday that happened-

Sonia Nolan: 8:20

And a Cyber Monday, I was reading about that.

Vannessa Van Beek: 8:21

A Cyber Monday. Yeah. And the big thing there is, you know, it's all these great, you know, shopping hargan bargains. And how do you know when you're on Facebook, or you're you see something coming through your feed, whether that's a real organisation, a real product, and if you purchase it, it will arrive in Australia. So it's just slowing down doing a bit of research, and always checking financial transactions. I worked with a school and they were doing a major building project. And they weren't doing the double check on is this person I'm paying actually the same person that we've actually put the contract in place and some details changed at the last minute and they did you know, a $40,000 payment to someone who was not the builder. Same thing, you know having that that double check that accountability check, cross checking, asking the questions, slowing the process down, checking with the financial accountant, ringing someone. Is this your account details? I noticed they've just changed. Can I confirm them before I transfer this money, those sorts of things. Because once the money is gone, it's gone. It can't be tracked. Often it will go into cryptocurrency or it'll be moved between accounts. And it's very difficult for the authorities, the police, federal police to actually track and find those funds.

Sonia Nolan: 9:49

So the scams at the other end, they've got their laundering mat ready, haven't they? Ready to syphon it into all sorts of different processes that it can't be tracked. And it's so clever.

Vannessa Van Beek: 10:00

Yeah, this is the thing, Sonia, don't take it personally, you know, this is a numbers game. And the organisations who are doing these, some of them are nation states, some of them are funded by governments, it could be Russia, it could be China, it could be Korea, they have the resources of large organisations behind them, people are coming to work and working in this field with a lot of resources. So it does look professional, it does look sophisticated. And it is because it's actually huge investments have been made. And

Sonia Nolan: 10:32

And someone does all the time. the work is actually separated between lots of different parts of organisation on specialties. So it's its own business, I think the business of what's going on in cybercrime is now larger than the drug business in the world. So you get a sense of the size of the problem that we're all facing into. And we are just one of those numbers. So when it happens, don't take it personally. Because you are just one of many people who have been sent a message and on the hope that someone will click

Vannessa Van Beek: 11:11

Yes, I think it cost the Australian economy$33 billion last year. And that's the self reported things that we know about, the cost of this to our economy. And that then flows into the cost of doing business to secure networks and protect business.

Sonia Nolan: 11:28

Yeah. And that you've just said self reported. Now there's probably a whole lot of people who are not reporting again, going back to the psychology of it, probably feeling really silly. Probably feeling really guilty. You know, all of those human emotions of"I can't believe I've been scammed. I can't believe I did that. And I've lost all this money. How do I explain that to my family?" So there's, there's so much that sits beneath that isn't there?

Vannessa Van Beek: 11:52

I'm a huge fan of Brene Brown. Love her work on shame. But shame is this

Sonia Nolan: 11:54

Me too. master emotion that binds us. So when something happens in cyber and we pay, lets say we pay something to the ATO when it's actually not the ATO, there's a huge feeling of shame, "what have I done? How can I tell the people close to me that I've made an error? And how do I then report that feeling like, I've made a really silly mistake," but it's absolutely vital that this gets reported, so that we can educate others. And the way to deal with shame is to actually talk about it. Because the more we talk about this, the more we normalise and bring it out into the light. People can then see it and we learn from each other. Oh, definitely. We are our own each other's teachers, aren't we? Yeah, most definitely. The idea that they're getting cleverer and cleverer in the background, the scammers I'm talking about, so they're getting cleverer and cleverer, and you've said nation states sit behind some of these. Is it and I read something on your LinkedIn profile actually, Vannessa, that there is - it seems that Australia is becoming more targeted. Is it true to say that Australia is a fair target for a lot of these organisations or companies or countries? In regards to cybercrime?

Vannessa Van Beek: 13:15

Absolutely. Australia has targeted. There's two reasons. The first is we are a wealthy country. We have an amazing wealth, it the average wealth of the Australian adult is $550,000. And that was reported last year in the ICSC Credit Suisse report, highlighting, and it's actually going up. And what that means is we've all got incredible assets, we've got houses, we've got cars, we've got superannuation funds, each Australian person has significant wealth. The second thing that we need to understand about Australia is our psychology that we oscillate between being at work and being full on at work. And you know, the COVID pandemic taught us something that we can respond to a crisis. We can harness resources, but then we oscillate to wanting to be at the beach, we want to go on holidays, we want to be with our family, we want to go to Rotto, we want to have December and January off, we want to live and the oscillation between this all on and all off.

Sonia Nolan: 14:22

It's crisis to coast, isn't it?

Vannessa Van Beek: 14:24

That's right. So there's a laid back kind of thing that is in the Australian psyche that we do, we do oscillate between these two ideas. And often when we are on holidays is when this will happen because our guards are down. We're not expecting it to happen. I remember I was travelling with a small group with a sporting team. And one of the mums who was leading the group. We were just arriving to the stadium and she got a message and she clicked on it and she quickly tried to sort out whatever it was. Now in the heist of doing that she was scammed and her- she'd released her bank details and all of her bank accounts then became kind of in jeopardy. It's that kind of thing, right? It's this oscillation between one minute we're at work, and we're kind of really guarded and we're really careful. But then it's the stepping out of that, where this sort of thing where we're most vulnerable.

Sonia Nolan: 15:23

So what's the advice on that? Do we need to be alert but not alarmed? You know, that famous old saying, is that where we need to get to? In regards to cybersecurity?

Vannessa Van Beek: 15:32

Absolutely pause, slow down.

Sonia Nolan: 15:34

Think about it. Is it real?

Vannessa Van Beek: 15:36

Is it real? Does this have to be actioned right now, can it wait?

Sonia Nolan: 15:40

But they are so clever. I remember the 'dear mum" scam that came through on WhatsApp. And I don't know if everyone's familiar with that. But it was a message that came on your - and normally, on a Saturday or Sunday morning. So on a weekend, where you think your young adult children might be out and about, "Dear Mum, I've broken my phone. I'm using this number now. You know, can you send me some money?" it's something like that. And so many people fell for it. So you've just got to, you're right, you've got to pause, you've got to validate. And just take a minute to to just reflect on how clever the scammers are. So tell me about to the Australian culture, though, we go from crisis to coast and relaxing and all the rest, but from an organisational perspective as well. There's all this fear around, we can't let a data breach happen. And fear seems to be one of the key levers in regards to trying to affect the culture to make sure that everything stands tight. What are some of the other levers though, that may be should and could be used around organisations to allow that consistency of behaviour. But also, you know, not use fear as the big stick.

Vannessa Van Beek: 16:56

Yes, I'm a big fan of preparation, and doing the planning and then testing the planning and doing live scenarios. We can learn a lot from other industries like emergency response industries, aviation industries, about how they have test plans for emergency response, and how they test them and enact them and actually build a muscle for those kinds of events. So that when they happen, we we actually know what to do. And it's muscle memory that we're working with. And the brain doesn't go directly into that red zone, we can actually keep the brain almost in that green zone where it can do more rational thinking. And it can calm the ball, and we can actually navigate our way through it, rather than hitting the red zone, pressing the panic button, and actually causing a lot of alarm, but not a lot of actual action. So preparation is the key. And for organisations, that means having the right Incident Response Plans, testing those plans, and having a programme of constantly testing their networks and their environments. So that we kind of can confidently say it's tested, it's known, we know where our gaps are, and we've got a plan to continually fix them.

Sonia Nolan: 18:12

And in regards to that testing, obviously, that's really critical. And I think another aspect that I read when I was ready getting ready for our conversation, Vannessa, was that the tech industries and banks are pretty good at testing. But when it comes to national government infrastructure, not so good at testing, tell us what the danger is in that.

Vannessa Van Beek: 18:37

Yeah, so critical infrastructure is a target like never before. And we've seen- when I talk about critical infrastructure, I'm talking about water, transportation, energy communications. So these are primary targets for a cyber attack. There's two motivations as to why cyber attacks happen. One is for money, but the second is disruption. So some organisations are out there to actually cause disruption. And you can imagine the kind of disruption that happens when you affect a power grid, a water distribution or communications network, and what that does to how that ripples through an organisation. So the government's recognised this, and the latest piece of legislation they've put in place is around the security of critical infrastructure legislation, which requires those organisations to start the process of actually knowing where their assets are, and actually reporting on incidents and putting in place a whole list of security controls to protect those organisations. But this is the point that's really interesting, this is where we see the cyber war become a physical war, because we see with the escalation of what happened in the Russia/Ukraine conflict, that particular conflict started in the cyber realm, then moved to the physical realm. So this is becoming its own warfare. In the last report from the ICSC, they said that cyberspace is the new battleground. So the work that we're doing, we're building an army of young people and old people and people from all sorts of backgrounds with diverse minds to actually be part of that army, to fight and protect Australia, from that kind of activity. So it's the modern work that has this incredible sense of purpose. As to why we do the work, we're protecting schools, we're protecting hospitals, we're protecting our police. We're protecting law enforcement. And we're protecting the very water and energy that actually drives our economy. It's really critical work.

Sonia Nolan: 20:49

It is. And can you tell me a bit more about the water case study that was that was done with Edith Cowan University. Tell me more about that, because I'm really, really interested in the whole water scenario, because I'm going to cast my mind back to year 10. Right. So year 10 science class, I had a wonderful teacher called Mr. Dobowski. And it was the day after Chernobyl. So that happened when we would have been in year 10, Vannessa, and Chernobyl happened and he was really distraught about the situation and felt that it was going to trigger a whole escalation of, of global powers and World War Three, he was being quite dramatic. But you know, who knows that well could have been something even more dramatic than it was. And he made us think in the science class about in the event of a catastrophe, what is the most important profession? And we all sat down, and we're thinking about it. And of course, someone said, "Oh, doctor, of course, you know, you should be a doctor because you can help sick people." And then other people came up with lots of other important professions. And he said, "No, you're all wrong. The most important person in a crisis is a plumber, because they can restore the water supply. Because if you don't have good water, and clean, you know, sanitation, and drinking water, then that's when your society is at risk." And it's always stuck with me, a very dramatic lesson. But it's always stuck with me this idea of how important our water is, and

Vannessa Van Beek: 22:22

Yes. So let me just run through a couple of something that we take for granted, because we're blessed in our country to be able to turn the tap on, we've got running hot and cold water, which is an absolute privilege terms that are really high level. So we have IT which is in this on the globe, that to have our water source compromised is actually a really big issue for a country. So with that introduction of my my year 10 story, Vannessa, tell me about the case study that you've done with water? information technology, that's your enterprise network, and

Sonia Nolan: 22:54

Where was that? enterprise security. And then you have this thing that's just off to the left called operational technology. And that's the technology that's used in water treatment plants.

Vannessa Van Beek: 23:30

That was in a state in the States. And they

Sonia Nolan: 23:30

It's just a whole other world, isn't it? We are they paid a $4.4 million ransomware. And the, the group that did it were called Dark Side. And we saw there that That's all the sensors and the valves that keeps the water where the information technology system was attacked, it had this fear flow on affect the operational technology, so they closed everything down. And that had an impact on everything, flowing. So for years, the target has been the IT fuel supplies, and distribution, all those sorts of things. We saw people panic buying in America to get fuel and things environment. Hackers have been targeting those networks. But like that. And then the next one that happens very quickly after that was the world's largest beef supplier, which was JBS, they were hacked, and they have eleven beef processing plants in more recently, the new prize for cyber attackers has been the OT Australia. So the ripple effect also affected Australia. And similarly, those systems had to be taken offline. And then we network, because they want to control the operations of that get to water which was a very interesting case study in the water sector, when we saw in Florida hackers remotely accessed an environment, changed the levels of sodium hydroxide environment. And they do that by over speeding, overloading it, in a water plant, and the changing of those levels would make the water poisonous, which would have impacts on health for many, many people. So that change was made by someone disrupting the network. So that kind of industrial cybersecurity getting into an environment and changing the controls affecting the quality of water that was then flowing through to that community. So that's the very critical nature of, you know, then leads to operational risk and safety risk. So when you critical infrastructure, the water sector, absolutely people who, you know, protect, restore secure those kinds of environment, water is critical. It's a basic human right to have think about some of the big things that's happened, clean water. And you know, we sit here at your table, when I've got a glass of water, I should never have to think, "Is particularly in the cyber breaches, we've saw Colonial this water safe? If I drink this water, am I going to be poisoned?" You know, the trust that we have in Australia is that we have supply of electricity, we have supply of Pipeline was one of the biggest ones that we saw last year, water, it's clean, it's safe. So one of the big pieces of work that that I was doing, with my group was securing 18 water where they shut down that pipeline. And it was 5500 miles authorities in Victoria, to make sure that we can ensure that the quality of water that they drink is safe, because we're now monitoring for cyber threats, that new environment. of pipeline. definitely in a new era, in regards to like you've said, you know, sort of the foot soldiers of any sort of global crisis or war will actually be played out in the cyber field, it's not necessarily in the trenches, as in the past. So this understanding of getting young people and everyone to really understand their part in this as a foot soldier is really important. Are there - is there enough talent in Australia for this?

Vannessa Van Beek: 27:03

Their absolutely is. And the answers to the question around the workforce of the future, comes from getting really close to our TAFE. And our university sectors. Also drawing on the amazing expertise of some of our veterans who have always worked in the fields of defence of assets, accessing new talent, people grafting into cyber like I did from IT, making sure that we have opportunities open for, for women, for people who may be neurodiverse. This is where we build this incredible workforce of the future. And you know, when I talk to the universities and the TAFE colleges, they're doing amazing work, actually bringing a new generation through, who have really, really great skills. The trick, then is to actually mentor those people in their first early roles, so that we actually can keep them in the industry, because it's a very broad industry in terms of the kinds of skills that you need. And to be successful in this industry not only requires great technical skills, it also requires people to better communicate well to, to write well, technically, to work in a team, the problems are so difficult in this space that you have to work together. But the people drawn to work in this area actually like to work alone. So there's a role for people to facilitate that process of how do we solve problems together? And how do we acknowledge that in all of the teams, people have different skills, and different ways of working, and that's okay. But we do need different minds to actually solve some of these really complex problems.

Sonia Nolan: 28:51

That understanding of diversity and different minds is so important. I remember doing a course some years ago with an organisation called Cognitive Edge Excellent Organisation, and they talked about having the diversity there so that you can pick up weak signals, because it's the weak signals that will undo you because you don't see them coming. So yeah, really, really different thinking it's not the train on the track coming at you. That is actually the danger what it is, but it's the weak signals that you're missing because you don't have the diversity in the room to pick it up. So yeah, really important. I'm really pleased to hear that that's a really big focus for the future.

Vannessa Van Beek: 29:32

Yeah, yeah. And sometimes we have to listen to those quiet voices in the office. Sometimes we have to think about how we're working and can we present a problem and then allow some space for thinking, writing, drawing, working with Lego or whatever it needs to be to kind of unlock what that solution might look like?

Sonia Nolan: 29:58

You do a lot of work with Lego, don't you Vanessa? Talk me through that, because I'm curious to understand it.

Vannessa Van Beek: 30:03

Yeah, I brought my Lego box in to my workplace. And we had a number of problems we were trying to solve, one of them, we just needed to kind of form a little bit more as a team. And I borrow a lot from Aboriginal culture, because I think it does really give us an amazing capacity to listen. And so borrowing from Aboriginal culture, I asked people to share their pictures of their people in their place, and just listen. And so we did that. And then following that, I then asked people to build some structures out of Lego and talk to what those structures were, to build what their superpowers were, and to share that one by one with just a lot of silence and listening, just one person talking at a time. And what we found was this beautiful method, where people genuinely were listened to in the workplace. And we heard stories about their mental health journeys, we heard stories about their their greatest desires for their careers, we heard stories about strengths and weaknesses. And then often we'll actually build models and connect models together to see where there's gaps. And then once that becomes visible, we can then step back and then say, "okay, look at this, we need to bring this closer together, or we've got too many people swarmed here, and we need to spread it here," and everyone can see it at the same time making the same connections. So yeah, I've just been a huge fan of Lego for what it does just to relax the mind. Often, people in cyber, might just need some space to do the thinking. And Lego provides that medium to think to pause to. And to connect, and storytelling, I think it's so powerful in the workplace. So I use a lot of that stuff. And you know, we both had the great fortune of doing the Catherine McAuley programme many years ago. And that was my first, yeah, learning around storytelling being just so powerful to build relationships and connections with people. And I've carried that with a lot of my work.

Sonia Nolan: 32:19

You lit up, Vannessa, when I said Lego, but I think it's also that understanding of leading teams, it's such a deep set passion for you isn't it? That understanding of being able to influence the behaviour of a team in a really positive, life giving way? Tell me more about your leadership philosophy.

Vannessa Van Beek: 32:40

I love working with people, I love to build relationships, one on one with people, I love to see their careers, and their skills develop. And I love to really get close to understanding what their capabilities are to actually solve problems. So I'm not the technical expert, I have good technical knowledge, the experts are actually in the teams that I lead. So it's actually allowing that kind of space, that trusted relationship where we can work together, for great things to happen. And for every person, because we're people, that's different. That's a different journey. How I support people looks different for every person I've worked with. But certainly building a strong one on one relationship, really being very clear about boundaries really calling on behaviour, when it's kind of below the line, really being clear about what the team's charter is, and really connecting people to purpose. Why do we do this work? Who is it for? And coming back to that? Why? Because the what and the when will actually happen. But it's often we get disillusioned in our work when we aren't connected to purpose, why are we here? And so just reminding people on what that purpose is and getting really crystal clear about the vision for a particular project or a particular timeframe, so that everyone's connected and contributing to that particular focus.

Sonia Nolan: 34:14

And you're fresh out of a retreat from Ubud Is that right, Vanessa? And you know, wonderful. Was it a leadership retreat or a yoga retreat? Or you know, what were your take outs from it?

Vannessa Van Beek: 34:25

Yeah, so I'm in the process of changing roles and I took seven days out to have seven days Ubud, doing a - kind of an Eat, Pray, Love personal retreat that was facilitated. So I did a lot of yoga meditation, I saw a lot of beautiful green fields, which is really great for the brain. I read lots, I had some personal coaching while I was there. I visited some of the temples and did some guided tours around just cleansing with water. I visited one of the famous healers in Bali and just took time to kind of restore my own, we're all in constant state of transformation. I work in transformation, but the biggest transformation actually happens internally, and those who are transformed, transform others. So for me that constant renewal is really important. And the best way to kind of explain that transformation is to look at nature, because nature is just always transforming. And you get that lovely feeling of the seasons in nature, you get the growth phase, you get the shedding or the dying off phase, and you get this kind of, you know, circular kind of feeling of what nature how nature restores us. So, yeah, that was just so delightful.

Sonia Nolan: 35:47

It sounds magic. Yeah. So you said you're in between, you're about to change roles the able to tell us where you're going to next or was that not announced yet?

Vannessa Van Beek: 35:56

Yeah, so I'm delighted. I'm stepping into an Australian leadership role with Avanade, which is a joint venture between Accenture and Microsoft. And I will lead the Australian team who do a lot of design and architecture solutions using the Microsoft stack for Australian organisations.

Sonia Nolan: 36:15

Fantastic. So is that still going to be based here in Perth?

Vannessa Van Beek: 36:18

Absolutely it's based in Perth. I've got a team here locally, our team nationally, and also a global team to lean into.

Sonia Nolan: 36:26

Oh, congratulations, Vannessa. That sounds incredible.

Vannessa Van Beek: 36:28

Thank you.

Sonia Nolan: 36:29

Yeah, well done. Well deserved as always. It seems a really long way from a girl in Geraldton.

Vannessa Van Beek: 36:36

Absolutely.

Sonia Nolan: 36:37

A long time ago. Tell me about your, your early years in Geraldton. And, and sort of that trajectory from

Vannessa Van Beek: 36:44

I grew up in Geraldton. It's a little tiny there. town 400 kilometres north. My family are a farming family very connected to land. My parents had a small business. And I went to Stella Maris College in Geraldton. And, yeah, I aspired to go to university while I was studying in Geraldton. And that was quite different. And I aspired to do law which was something yeah, it was quite different at the time as well. And, and I'm a big believer that education changes lives. And my experience has been I came from a fairly low socio economic environment in Geraldton, the single parent family in my teenage years. And through studying, I actually understood more about power, and more about empowerment. And I started considering careers and professions and all of those sorts of things. And I found it just an incredibly liberating experience to study. And, and then from there, I've just kind of navigated, but I always stay close to that, that grounding of this is the environment that I come from, I don't have a real sense of ego or entitlement, everything that gets done gets done with people. We listen to each other, we stay grounded in the work and we do what we can to empower people to to do brilliant work.

Sonia Nolan: 38:26

Well, Vannessa, I had the privilege of being at your wedding to Luke and I still remember the reading that you chose, which was salt of the earth, light of the world. And it's just so... it's so you.

Vannessa Van Beek: 38:39

Thank you, thank you. Yeah, yeah. And even that reading it, it struck a chord with me even last week when I was away. You know, there are times in our life where, where things do seem dark, and being able to draw on great readings like that, to understand the importance of light in our life, the importance of light- to shine a light on things that are happening in the world, where we need people to take action like cybersecurity, the importance of being role models to the world as well. You know, I love the catch cry of WiTWA which was if you can see her you can be her, we absolutely need role models. And some of my role models were you know, women who worked really, really hard and seeing my mum work and also raise family gave me this understanding that of course, that's what I'm to do as a woman is to, to both work and nurture family. And sometimes I find myself nurturing at work, and sometimes I find myself working at home. And that's absolutely okay, too.

Sonia Nolan: 39:45

And you don't describe it as a work life balance, which is what I really like, because I just, you know, I was saying to someone recently that I was going to have a Warm Table conversation with you and she said, "Oh, you're going to ask her about how she juggles" and I said, "You know what I'm actually a bit sick of that conversation." And you don't talk about work life balance, because I love the way that you talk about it like navigating and sailing a ship. Can you share the splashes and the, you know, the delightful dips in the ocean that come with that sort of analogy?

Vannessa Van Beek: 40:18

Absolutely. Well, I look to the great artists and the great writers, and when they have achieved great things they've been all in. And so in my life where I've achieved great things I've absolutely been all in. And yes, that's had a splashback effect sometimes on my home life. But there's been other times where my home life has required some focus and some attention and some nurturing. And then I've been able to absolutely do that. And it's sometimes there's also a spillover of of some of the great things I do in my extracurricular kind of life outside of work that then spills into how I lead how I run teams, how I connect with people. So I like to think of it as an absolute navigation between things. Because when I thought about balance, I always thought I was doing it wrong, that something was unbalanced and to be unbalanced, it didn't feel right to me. But to be all in on something to achieve something in life requires sacrifice, and requires, you know, things to be a little bit out of balance. But that's just for a particular purpose to achieve a degree to achieve a certification to climb a mountain, it's for a period of time.

Sonia Nolan: 41:35

A moment in time, isn't it?

Vannessa Van Beek: 41:36

It's a moment in time. It's not forever. So I've always kind of thought about it like that the splashback and the spillover effect of, of sometimes work spilling over into my personal life and sometimes my personal life spilling over into work. But at the end of the day to keep focused on doing brilliant work, while also maintaining great connections with friends and family and those around you. You're listening to My Warm Table podcast. My name is Vannessa and my conversations with Sonia and it's all about cybersecurity.

Sonia Nolan: 42:09

I want to just get back to some of the cybersecurity elements for normal people like myself, Vannessa, who you know, I'm a bit- I'm fairly tech tech savvy. I'm not going to downplay that. But but you know, this idea of staying safe online. So you know, certainly for family and friends, I'm sure you get- I'm sure since you ventured into the cybersecurity space all in everyone's been asking you about how to protect their passwords and how do you know multi, what is this multi factor authentication that you speak of? So can you run us through some of those sorts of things?

Vannessa Van Beek: 42:45

So there are some practical things we can all do to protect ourselves from cybercrime. The first one is strong, unique passwords and to use a password manager. So make sure that you're using different passwords for every type of service that you use.

Sonia Nolan: 43:02

Absolutely every single one of them?

Vannessa Van Beek: 43:04

Yes, don't duplicate your passwords.

Sonia Nolan: 43:06

Ever?

Vannessa Van Beek: 43:07

No, no.

Sonia Nolan: 43:08

I'm asking for a friend.

Vannessa Van Beek: 43:10

Absolutely. So let's say you have a password in your LinkedIn account. And let's say that your organisation LinkedIn has a data breach. And all of those breached records get pasted on the dark web, someone can actually buy those records on the dark web, and then start a phishing campaign based on those username and passwords. If you've duplicated that password on your bank account, and on your shopping Coles online, order.

Sonia Nolan: 43:35

Your Facebook

Vannessa Van Beek: 43:35

And your Facebook, then they've already got your username and your password, and they can then get into those accounts, they can start ordering calls orders and they can start accessing some of your funds. So absolutely strong, unique passwords is really important. Change them frequently. And a password manager is a really good idea to have to keep track of them because I think I have hundreds of passwords. And in terms of guidance on how do you do a password, think of a phrase, think of a mantra, think of your favourite quote from a book, put that into a password. Think of it affirmation, I'm strong, brilliant woman, and type that you know, every time you go into your computer, which is both an affirmation of who you are, but it's also a very secure one because it's long incorporate, you know, capitals and other things into the password. So yeah, absolutely using strong, unique passwords and a password manager. Two factor authentication is absolutely critical. You should have two factor authentication, which is the additional layer of extra security requiring a piece of information like a code to be sent to your phone in addition to a password. For those really critical things in your life, like your bank account, your superannuation bank, your superannuation account, and your medical records, your MyGov, those sorts of things. Absolutely those and really important that important data absolutely has to be protected with two factor authentication. We've all got a job, you and me to actually help our parents do that. That's absolutely important. Young people can teach us and we can teach our parents and together, we can all help with that two factor authentication, particularly for bank accounts, superannuation accounts, and anything that we access on a regular basis that has funds attached to it. Be really careful with emails and downloads, always check for scams when you're getting emails. If something is too good to be true, then it probably is too good to be true. Be careful of people who call you that you don't know. So I get a number of calls. And sometimes you answer the call. And there's a long pause. That's the first clue to this could be an overseas call. And don't say your name, don't give them any information? And don't even say yes or no, because saying yes on one of those calls could actually be a form of contract of a voice confirmation for you accepting goods or services. So actually remain silent. And sometimes I'll use the keypad on my phone or something to have a digital kind of tone, go down the line, but just be really careful. Don't share information until they have shared information. And if it says that "look, I'm your bank," or "I'm Telstra, and I'd like to reset your password." Always say, "let me call you back." And then call back into Telstra or your bank and say I've just had a call requesting this be done has someone from the branch or someone from your communications provider actually called in. So that's another thing to do. And just be really careful around all of those payment requests. Take time out, talk to someone about it. Think about it, go for a walk before you pay it. Just let your brain do its critical thinking, don't do anything that overdrive. Slow down.

Sonia Nolan: 47:08

What are some of the clues though? So if we're getting an email that looks authentic, what are some of the clues to show that it's not authentic?

Vannessa Van Beek: 47:15

So look out for poor grammar, awkward phrasing, misspelling, they can be all indicators of a scam. Look out for an organisation that says they're an organisation. But when you look behind it, it's a Gmail account or another account and it doesn't quite look right.

Sonia Nolan: 47:30

So look at the actual email account that it's coming from. And you'll often find, for example, I got something from Facebook the other day and said Facebook, but then it went into at Gmail dot something or other, it's something else that was not at all authentic to Facebook.

Vannessa Van Beek: 47:44

Yeah, and look for the A. The A can be done as like the alphabet A but it can also be done written in a different kind of way. Sometimes it's as subtle as the actual characters that they've used don't line up with the corporate branding and logos and all of that there's one letter that just looks unusual. That should be enough just to say, hey, pause.

Sonia Nolan: 48:11

Pause. That's your big message today, isn't it?

Vannessa Van Beek: 48:13

But just lets have another look at this, right?

Sonia Nolan: 48:17

What about things like the good old McDonald's Wi Fi, the free Wi Fi that you get in the shopping centre and you know, travelling around and you hook onto a different Wi Fi system? Is there danger in doing that?

Vannessa Van Beek: 48:29

There's absolute dangers in doing that. I would not connect to a Wi Fi at an airport, at a fast food restaurant. I think it's a much safer thing to do to actually when you're travelling, get a SIM card with a data plan that that's got its own, you know, yeah, I really think Wi Fi poses a lot of problems. Because people can intercept that public network and actually see the transactions that you're making. They can actually track the passwords that you're putting in. And so you are more susceptible to being hacked if you're using public Wi Fi.

Sonia Nolan: 49:13

And what about social media, Vannessa? What are some of the risks with social media?

Vannessa Van Beek: 49:18

Yeah, so certainly not disclosing too much. And certainly being very aware of our children's right, the right to be private. So there's a campaign going on at the moment around share parenting or something like that parents who actually oversharing a lot of their child's achievements. So I very consciously stopped posting about my children as they became adolescents, because I was very conscious that this is their life. My Facebook is about me. And I just tell a story from my perspective. And if I use a photo of them I'll seek their permission, just understanding that they have that right and we sometimes forget that they have a right to remain anonymous, to not be drawn into our story all of the time, and with social media I certainly wouldn't be posting anything, keep your date of birth, concealed. Don't share that information, don't announce, yeah, significant birthdays, and all that those sorts of things. You can do it later or earlier. But be very careful about what you're sharing and what that might be revealing about you that could then be used against you. I think when you're talking about holidays, and things like that, send the post, when you've come back from the holiday, not while you're kind of at the airport has made the departure lounge, because then people know that you're travelling, and you might be on the hop and you might be using other networks, and you might be a bit more hurried than normal. So just be careful what you're actually sharing and how that might reveal things about you. One of the things that we do in organisations is an open source intelligence assessment for executives. And we will actually scan all of their their public profiles and actually help tell them this is the information that you've revealed. And this is the information and how it might be used against you. And this is what's on the public web. This is what's on the dark web. And these are areas where you've used the same password two or three times and could be a risk. So for executives, we do like a personal risk kind of assessment. We can all kind of do that. But we've just got to think about things from a risk lens. And be careful that we're not over sharing too much information about our everyday lives.

Sonia Nolan: 51:54

I was talking to my husband the other day, and he said that every time the organisation he works they post a new employees just started. And he said within a few days, that employee has received an email, phishing email and telling them "oh, welcome on board. Click on here just so that we can start in some of your login processes." So they're just so clever. And they are following, they're watching.

Vannessa Van Beek: 52:16

Absolutely. Slowly, slowly, slowly. I like to give it a few weeks before announcing I've started a new role, just for that purpose, just to get properly on boarded to the organisation to get a really good sense of getting all of that set up well first. So yeah, there's there's all of this kind of giftedness in doing things a little bit slower in the digital kind of realm. If that's possible.

Sonia Nolan: 52:44

I think that's the biggest take out today. Vannessa, from our conversation is pause, just stop, it doesn't need to be done right now. Take a moment. Trust your gut, do some forensics and and then respond to only if it's, if it's actually valid.

Vannessa Van Beek: 53:01

Yeah. And I want to wave into that pause. Pause for your own mental health to remember to take time, take time for yourself, take time to meditate, to walk to check in with yourself, how am I feeling today? And just sit with that for a little bit. So that pause is also important for our own personal resilience and transformation as well.

Sonia Nolan: 53:23

It definitely is. Vannessa, it's been so lovely to reconnect with you around the Warm Table today. Thank you so much for being my guest.

Vannessa Van Beek: 53:31

You're welcome.

Sonia Nolan: 53:34

Thanks for joining me Sonia Nolan around the Warm Table. Let's grow the community. Please follow My Warm Table podcast on socials and like and share this episode with your family and friends. My Warm Table is brought to you by Females Over 45 Fitness. Keep listening now for a health tip from FOFF head coach Kelli Reilly.

Kelli Reilly FOFF: 53:55

Hi ladies, it's Kelli here, the creator and head coach of Females Over 45 Fitness. How is your stability and balance. As we age, stability and balance can deteriorate and here at FOFF, we help you work on your balance and your stability. With all the movements that we do here within the studio, the change in direction, the shifts in body weights and all the challenges that we put you through here at FOFF really helps you improve your stability and balance tenfold. So ladies, it's your time to shine. Let's get out there.