All right.
Welcome to the cyber traps podcast.
We are here at the inch three 60 event, uh, in beautiful
Gonzaga and Spokane, Washington.
And, uh, today we have Pia Hollenberg.
Did I say that right?
Yeah.
You said that.
Okay.
Pia Hollenberg.
Um, so what she does is she is a, um, is a recovering journalist.
She said, tell us a little bit about what you do now.
I'm a cybersecurity writer.
Uh, and what that means is I basically take my journalism skills and I apply
them to writing, uh, blog posts and white papers and contributed articles
for, uh, executives who don't have time to do it themselves, um, because
they're busy running a business, um, and also for companies that have software
that, uh, They're struggling to explain to people what it is that this thing
does, why should you really have it.
So I have, I can sort of translate all the tech talk into something
that people want to read.
And one of my clients actually said that.
He said, well, you know, the difference between you and all
the other people is that you write stuff that people want to read.
Yeah, wow.
And wouldn't it be nice if everybody looked at their websites
and ran them through that lens?
Because there's a lot of, um Yes,
there is a lot of junk, that is for sure.
That's a good way of putting it, yes.
Uh, so, what brings you to an event like this?
Um, so, three years ago I started my own, I started working for myself.
And, I was a journalist for 20 years before that.
I had another job in between, um, doing fundraising.
So I was basically always, uh, surrounded by people and I thrive in it.
in a busy environment, like news rooms are, well they used to be Um, yeah.
News rooms used to be, oh, oh no, that's sad.
No, news rooms used to be loud and kind of boisterous environments and
there's always people around you, you can bounce ideas off your, uh, the
person next to you, that kind of thing.
And so, after I'd been on my own for about a year, I started feeling kind of lonely.
and I thought I'm for sure the only person who does anything
cyber security in Spokane.
There can't be anybody else because the writing agency, Tree Iron
Company that I, I write for a lot, they're based in San Francisco.
And so all the cyber writing was somewhere else.
And I was like feeling lonely in the Paulson building.
and then I met Heather Stratford and I kinda got involved a little bit in
the cyber security, community here.
And I realized that there were all these people and there were all these companies
that I didn't even know were here.
And I thought, okay, I better start going to those conferences.
So, that's why I'm here.
And I just kind of shake hands and take notes and, um, I'm
always looking for trends.
like they were just talking about cloud security and so, uh, that's something
that I will You know, go home and write up a few things just for myself, do a
little research, what else is going on.
I'm surprised to hear, um, working from home being brought up again
as a, a, a cyber security issue.
Um, but I guess as long as we work from home, There's bound to be some cyber
security issues, and so I, I keep, I try to keep on top of, the trends, so
when I interview somebody for one of the contributed articles I write, I can ask
the right questions, and I Don't just sit there and go, Oh, so dude, what do you do?
Yeah.
What is this cyber thing you're talking about?
Yeah, so when you were in journalism, were you focused on
cyber security or is this a whole
new thing?
No, it's a whole new thing.
I covered basically a lot of local journalism.
I was an editor a couple of times.
I covered politics, elections, crime, anything.
You know, you can think about that comes into a small newspaper.
The cyber thing happened because a friend of mine was already getting
into the cyber writing business.
And she called me and she said, there's this company, they really need a writer.
You need to call them.
You just, you could totally do this.
And I was like, no.
Are you kidding me?
Have you met me?
I mean, I'm not an engineer.
What are you talking about?
And she's like, no, call them.
They really need somebody.
And I was like, okay, pity hiring, right?
Because they, they need somebody.
Fill the seat.
But they hired me right away.
And that was a startup company called Reciprocity.
Uh, that's who I, that was my very first cyber client.
And so I wrote for them for, uh, a couple of years.
bought up, as they all, they all position themselves to get bought up, you know.
Um, so they got bought up, but then I connected with, uh, Trier in San
Francisco, and through them I have, uh, written for Mandiant, I've written for,
a start up, well they're not really a start up anymore, they're actually
pretty kick ass, they're based in Israel, they're called Cyber Sixkill,
and they are dark web threat hunters.
And they made the huge mistake of giving me access to their portals.
No, I mean that in the kindest way.
They sorted out all the stuff I told them I didn't want to see.
But I can, I can, because they can do that.
They can just block all the, if you don't want to see this, it's fine.
And so I learned so much about the dark web.
And all the stuff that's going on there.
So let me ask you a question about that, because normal people probably are not
really thinking about the dark web, except that we know it exists in some, you know,
alternate place, and that's all good.
But tell us a little bit about what you're seeing happening right
now with that, that we should be
aware of.
Well, I can tell you, um, my favorite, my favorite statistic, or my favorite quote,
and this always blows people's mind.
The dark web is the third largest economy in the world after the United
States and China Wow, so Just let that sink in it's not a place for basement
dwelling nerds, you know what they sell T shirts to each other or whatever.
It is a professional It's a separate business environment, and the, uh,
companies that operate there, for instance the ransomware companies, , They are
set up just like a legitimate business.
They have customer service, they have packages you can purchase.
Would you like to target your former employee, employer
with a ransomware attack?
We can set that up for you, sir.
It's 1, 000 in Bitcoin and in you go.
And I think, um, one of the things that people don't understand, unless you are in
this business, is that we're way beyond.
The basement coder in a hoodie.
It's not about that anymore.
So, and then it's interesting to me that, uh, whatever political conflicts,
a war we have in the rest of the world is reflected on the dark web.
So, okay.
I'm biting.
Tell me a little bit more about that.
What do you mean?
Well, like the current crisis, for instance, in Ukraine, um, hackers,
bloggers, the people who make a living on the dark web, they take sides.
And then they start, they launch their own attacks.
So, that's, without, that's, I can probably say that without
getting into too much trouble,
right?
Yeah, it's interesting, we had a, a previous guest on the podcast who worked
for the Navy as an intelligence officer, and, and shared hints of that similar
kind of stuff, that, um, you know, that, that's a very real aspect of war, that
we don't talk about in the news, and we don't hear much about as normal folks,
uh, but That, that is really happening,
so.
It is really happening, If you look at the typical threats to, let's say, any
internet user in the United States, they come from China, they come from Russia.
The most of them come from China and Russia.
Anyway, that was really interesting to me.
Yeah, fascinating.
I can easily go down a rabbit hole, but I think this is good.
I
think we'll need to have you on the show again.
I would love that.
And talk more about this.
I would love that.
So, Pia, how do people get in touch with you and learn more about the work you do?
Um, the best way to get a hold of me is via my email
address on my LinkedIn profile.
I have a strange name, Pia Hallenberg, and my email is just my name.
It's PiaHallenberg at gmail.
com.
I have basically any sort of social media because my name is
so odd you can easily find me.
Yeah, I hear you.
That's how it is with Jethro as well.
So, at Jethro Jones everywhere.
Yeah, Pia Thank you so much.
This is great getting to know you and spend some time with you.
So, Thank you