This year, Howest is organising a bunch of talks about IT-related subjects in the form of Tech&Meet sessions. In these sessions, a speaker is invited to talk about their work or a topic they are knowledgeable about. Students and professionals alike can attend these sessions to learn more about the world of technology and its ever-evolving fields. It was the first time I participated in one of these sessions and I am happy to report that I wasn't let down by the quality that was presented.
How it went
Today's speaker was Niels Deryckere, a content engineer at TryHackMe. He spends his days designing and setting up courses and labs for the platform. In his talk, he mostly discussed the difficulties of his job and how the platform evolved over the years to support the vast amount of content it now has.
In addition, he also provided some clarity on the state of cyber security in today's age. For example, he discussed which cyber security certificates are actually worth it and mentioned the difficulty that comes with trying to keep up with the latest developments on vulnerabilities and mitigation techniques.
After his talk, we were invited to try out some of the challenges on the platform. He provided three different ones you could try for free and if you were rapid enough to beat them all, you even had the chance to win a prize! We formed a duo and made quick work of it, solving the challenges in under an hour's time. Since we unfortunatly started doing the challenges a couple of hours later than the other groups though, we only got sixth position.
Yet, that didn't mean we came out empty-handed! We earned ourselves a month of free premium on TryHackMe in the form of a redeemable voucher. And after trying a couple of challenges on their site, I was very impressed by the quality they put out. I would definitely recommend the platform for anyone trying to improve their hacking skills!
Conclusion
Overall, the Tech&Meet session with Niels Deryckere was a valuable learning experience. While my partner and I did not win the challenge competition, we still earned a free month of TryHackMe premium access, which was a nice consolation prize. After trying out some of the platform's content, I was impressed by the quality of the challenges and labs, and I believe TryHackMe is an excellent resource for anyone looking to develop their hacking skills.
This Tech&Meet session was a great introduction to the work being done in the cybersecurity field. I left the event feeling informed and eager for future sessions, of which you'll probably hear more about as I write more posts.