Hi My Name Is Johan...

As a student in high school, I believe that cybersecurity should do four major things apart from security itself: It should be transparent, accessible to anyone, help educate others, and founded upon the principles of open-source. In a world where systems and more importantly people are vulnerable to cyber attacks and social engineering, cybersecurity brings the confidentiality and integrity of a system in addition to providing availability to those who need it (CIA Triad). To me, insights into and building for security turned me from a proponent that cybersecurity is just another hassle to deal with when managing systems to a proponent that realizes and advocates for the integration of security and protection in each step of our increasingly digital lives. This new mindset and bias to security guided me through my journey through high school from early experimenting and securing Linux systems through penetration testing with Kali Linux to building and developing small security tools such as Securox, a small lightweight Text User Interface used for system monitoring and Kaaval, a cross platform cybersecurity assistant which warns and quarantines suspicious files to protect systems from initial attacks and reinforcing users to check all files going through a system.

With new technologies and innovations emerging through the door every single day, It can often be difficult to focus on the key questions of security such as how this specific product interacts with networks while mesmerizing on the abilities that such products can do. With this new mindset, I try to approach technology with open-mindedness, understanding that what we can do with technology can be world-changing while also being responsible with how we approach new tech. It is important that we just as equally emphasize innovation, collaboration and transparency with security as we do with new developments. My open-source projects try to embody this spirit through the transparency of the code with comments explaining why we write certain functions or what they do, the readme clearly showing others how to use the end product, and encourages others to contribute their own ideas to the project. In fact this idea is what open-source is all about which is why I encourage everyone to participate or make your own projects because a future idea can only be conceived and built if initiative is taken today.