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All right.

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Welcome to the cyber traps podcast.

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We are here at the inch three
60 event, uh, in beautiful

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Gonzaga and Spokane, Washington.

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And, uh, today we have Pia Hollenberg.

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Did I say that right?

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Yeah.

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You said that.

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Okay.

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Pia Hollenberg.

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Um, so what she does is she is a,
um, is a recovering journalist.

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She said, tell us a little
bit about what you do now.

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I'm a cybersecurity writer.

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Uh, and what that means is I basically
take my journalism skills and I apply

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them to writing, uh, blog posts and
white papers and contributed articles

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for, uh, executives who don't have
time to do it themselves, um, because

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they're busy running a business, um, and
also for companies that have software

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that, uh, They're struggling to explain
to people what it is that this thing

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does, why should you really have it.

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So I have, I can sort of translate
all the tech talk into something

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that people want to read.

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And one of my clients actually said that.

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He said, well, you know, the
difference between you and all

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the other people is that you write
stuff that people want to read.

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Yeah, wow.

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And wouldn't it be nice if
everybody looked at their websites

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and ran them through that lens?

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Because there's a lot of, um Yes,

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there is a lot of junk, that is for sure.

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That's a good way of putting it, yes.

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Uh, so, what brings you
to an event like this?

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Um, so, three years ago I started my
own, I started working for myself.

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And, I was a journalist
for 20 years before that.

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I had another job in between,
um, doing fundraising.

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So I was basically always, uh,
surrounded by people and I thrive in it.

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in a busy environment, like news rooms
are, well they used to be Um, yeah.

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News rooms used to be,
oh, oh no, that's sad.

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No, news rooms used to be loud and
kind of boisterous environments and

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there's always people around you, you
can bounce ideas off your, uh, the

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person next to you, that kind of thing.

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And so, after I'd been on my own for about
a year, I started feeling kind of lonely.

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and I thought I'm for sure the
only person who does anything

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cyber security in Spokane.

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There can't be anybody else because
the writing agency, Tree Iron

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Company that I, I write for a lot,
they're based in San Francisco.

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And so all the cyber
writing was somewhere else.

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And I was like feeling lonely
in the Paulson building.

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and then I met Heather Stratford and
I kinda got involved a little bit in

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the cyber security, community here.

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And I realized that there were all these
people and there were all these companies

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that I didn't even know were here.

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And I thought, okay, I better
start going to those conferences.

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So, that's why I'm here.

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And I just kind of shake hands
and take notes and, um, I'm

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always looking for trends.

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like they were just talking about cloud
security and so, uh, that's something

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that I will You know, go home and write
up a few things just for myself, do a

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little research, what else is going on.

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I'm surprised to hear, um, working
from home being brought up again

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as a, a, a cyber security issue.

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Um, but I guess as long as we work from
home, There's bound to be some cyber

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security issues, and so I, I keep, I
try to keep on top of, the trends, so

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when I interview somebody for one of the
contributed articles I write, I can ask

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the right questions, and I Don't just sit
there and go, Oh, so dude, what do you do?

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Yeah.

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What is this cyber thing
you're talking about?

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Yeah, so when you were in
journalism, were you focused on

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cyber security or is this a whole

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new thing?

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No, it's a whole new thing.

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I covered basically a
lot of local journalism.

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I was an editor a couple of times.

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I covered politics,
elections, crime, anything.

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You know, you can think about
that comes into a small newspaper.

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The cyber thing happened because a
friend of mine was already getting

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into the cyber writing business.

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And she called me and she said, there's
this company, they really need a writer.

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You need to call them.

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You just, you could totally do this.

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And I was like, no.

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Are you kidding me?

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Have you met me?

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I mean, I'm not an engineer.

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What are you talking about?

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And she's like, no, call them.

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They really need somebody.

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And I was like, okay, pity hiring, right?

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Because they, they need somebody.

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Fill the seat.

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But they hired me right away.

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And that was a startup
company called Reciprocity.

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Uh, that's who I, that was
my very first cyber client.

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And so I wrote for them
for, uh, a couple of years.

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bought up, as they all, they all position
themselves to get bought up, you know.

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Um, so they got bought up, but then
I connected with, uh, Trier in San

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Francisco, and through them I have, uh,
written for Mandiant, I've written for,

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a start up, well they're not really
a start up anymore, they're actually

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pretty kick ass, they're based in
Israel, they're called Cyber Sixkill,

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and they are dark web threat hunters.

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And they made the huge mistake of
giving me access to their portals.

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No, I mean that in the kindest way.

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They sorted out all the stuff I
told them I didn't want to see.

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But I can, I can,
because they can do that.

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They can just block all the, if you
don't want to see this, it's fine.

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And so I learned so
much about the dark web.

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And all the stuff that's going on there.

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So let me ask you a question about that,
because normal people probably are not

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really thinking about the dark web, except
that we know it exists in some, you know,

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alternate place, and that's all good.

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But tell us a little bit about
what you're seeing happening right

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now with that, that we should be

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aware of.

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Well, I can tell you, um, my favorite, my
favorite statistic, or my favorite quote,

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and this always blows people's mind.

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The dark web is the third largest
economy in the world after the United

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States and China Wow, so Just let that
sink in it's not a place for basement

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dwelling nerds, you know what they sell
T shirts to each other or whatever.

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It is a professional It's a separate
business environment, and the, uh,

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companies that operate there, for instance
the ransomware companies, , They are

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set up just like a legitimate business.

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They have customer service, they
have packages you can purchase.

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Would you like to target your
former employee, employer

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with a ransomware attack?

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We can set that up for you, sir.

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It's 1, 000 in Bitcoin and in you go.

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And I think, um, one of the things that
people don't understand, unless you are in

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this business, is that we're way beyond.

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The basement coder in a hoodie.

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It's not about that anymore.

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So, and then it's interesting to me
that, uh, whatever political conflicts,

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a war we have in the rest of the
world is reflected on the dark web.

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So, okay.

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I'm biting.

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Tell me a little bit more about that.

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What do you mean?

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Well, like the current crisis, for
instance, in Ukraine, um, hackers,

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bloggers, the people who make a living
on the dark web, they take sides.

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And then they start, they
launch their own attacks.

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So, that's, without, that's, I
can probably say that without

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getting into too much trouble,

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right?

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Yeah, it's interesting, we had a, a
previous guest on the podcast who worked

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for the Navy as an intelligence officer,
and, and shared hints of that similar

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kind of stuff, that, um, you know, that,
that's a very real aspect of war, that

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we don't talk about in the news, and we
don't hear much about as normal folks,

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uh, but That, that is really happening,

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so.

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It is really happening, If you look at
the typical threats to, let's say, any

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internet user in the United States, they
come from China, they come from Russia.

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The most of them come
from China and Russia.

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Anyway, that was really interesting to me.

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Yeah, fascinating.

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I can easily go down a rabbit
hole, but I think this is good.

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I

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think we'll need to have
you on the show again.

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I would love that.

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And talk more about this.

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I would love that.

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So, Pia, how do people get in touch with
you and learn more about the work you do?

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Um, the best way to get a
hold of me is via my email

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address on my LinkedIn profile.

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I have a strange name, Pia Hallenberg,
and my email is just my name.

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It's PiaHallenberg at gmail.

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com.

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I have basically any sort of
social media because my name is

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so odd you can easily find me.

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Yeah, I hear you.

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That's how it is with Jethro as well.

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So, at Jethro Jones everywhere.

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Yeah, Pia Thank you so much.

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This is great getting to know
you and spend some time with you.

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So, Thank you