Welcome to the (at this point only) English page at my website. My name is Patrick and since more than fifteen years I'm very enthusiastic about everything IT and Ethical hacking related (both professionally and after hours).
I use the classic channels to stay up to date (websites, newsletters, RSS feeds, books, magazines, personal contacts, courses and hacker & security conventions and lectures) and am an official team Member of Brucon, the Belgian hacking and security event (www.brucon.org).

I’m perpetually on the lookout for new courses that are IT security related. The past few years I did

• 'Certified Ethical Hacker' (CBT),
• 'The Ethical Hacking Course' (CA),
• 'Certified Practitioner' (SSCP),
• 'Tactical Perimeter Defense' (CA)
• ''Hacking Win2008 security (SV),
• 'Ethical Hacker Course' (Specialised Solutions),
• 'Windows 7 Security',
• 'ISO17799 – ISO27001 (sb)/ISO27002 (code of practice)' (The ISO27k Toolkit),
• 'Ethical Hacking and Penetration Testing' (VTC),
• 'Unix Hacking for beginners',
• 'Successful identity and access management implementations (CA)',
• 'Desktop Support Technician',
• 'Best Hacking' (Cyberwarez),
• 'Hacking revealed' and
• 'Small Business Server 2003 R2' (Windows Server 2003, Exchange Server 2003, Sharepoint, SQL Server 2005, ISA Server 2004), 'Networking for home & small business'…

Cryptography:
I have quite some experience in working and experimenting with many different encryption methods (specialised literature, websites and software such as Rohos, Autokrypt, Truecrypt, PGP, ABChaos, Fileshredders, ...).

Software:
Vast experience and keeping up to date with:

• Antivirus en anti-malware software
• Classic tools (scanning, routing, ping, nmap, etc, etc..)
• Security and Intrusion testing & prevention tools (dozens of different programs)
• Analysing 'special stuff' (phising, Trojan creators, cleaners, checksums, …)

Hardware:
Installing and configuring firewalls and keep up to date with ‘security related’ hardware

My IT library contains the following classics:

• 'Hack I.T.' (Klevinsky, Laliberte & Gupta),
• 'The Hackers Guide' (Anoniem),
• 'Firewalls for dummies' (Beekelaar, Komar & Wettern),
• 'How do I become a spy?' (Max Andersen),
• 'Hacking exposed' (McClure, Scambray & Kurtz),
• 'TCP/IP for dummies' (Cameron Brandon),
• 'Hacking Protected' (Juul Mulder),
• Windows Server 2008 for dummies (Tittel & Korelc)
• 'Anti-hacker Toolkit' (Jones, Shema & Johnson)
• ’'The art of deception, controlling the human element of security' (Kevin Mitnick!)
• +/- fifty books on programming, programming languages, Unix, Linux, and Mac OS.

Print & Web:

• Magazines (Hacking monthly,..),
• Websites (there are so many sites around and at least +/- 30 of them are really great),
• newsletters and RSS feeds
• Hacker forums (one buried slightly deeper than the other)

Podcasts:
There are quite a few good Security related Podcasts that keep you informed, and several websites from Hacker conventions put all their speakers and conferences on-line in the MP3 format.

To be honest, the list is endless and something could be added every fortnight... for one reason or another it doesn't really appeal to me to update this list every week ;-)

Since several years I'm a member in good standing of Triple 9. A very interesting society with members in 20 different countries, and I always try to attend every OWASP and ISSA meeting in Brussels. Ideal for networking.

Translating:
If I only had the time... I would translate all my Dutch web pages into English and put them on-line...
But as I just mentioned; if I only had the time... In the meanwhile I put op this English page.

Writing articles and tips goes rather fast and fluent in Dutch, since Dutch, or Flemish to be exact, is my mother tongue. Although I might be surprised by the speed at which one can translate web pages from Dutch to English, it still would at least double the amount of time I put in the site. At this specific moment I simply don't have that time to spare.

But who knows, I keep it as a possibility and a definitively maybe... and may start translating one of these...

                            

I took the above picture at the 94 bus stop at Holland Park Ave. on one of my regular visits to London. Kinda cute I thought (it's an ad for neighbourhood watch featuring Vladimir 'Count Compare' :-)

Click here if you want to drop me a line in English, French, German or Dutch.

Finally, here are some interesting definitions from wikipedia:

White hat
A white hat hacker breaks security for non-malicious reasons, for instance testing their own security system. This type of hacker enjoys learning and working with computer systems, and consequently gains a deeper understanding of the subject. Such people normally go on to use their hacking skills in legitimate ways, such as becoming security consultants. The word 'hacker' originally included people like this, although a hacker may not be someone into security.

Grey hat
A grey hatted hacker is a hacker of ambiguous ethics and/or borderline legality, often frankly admitted.

Black hat
A black hat hacker, sometimes called "cracker", is someone who breaks computer security without authorization or uses technology (usually a computer, phone system or network) for vandalism, credit card fraud, identity theft, piracy, or other types of illegal activity.

Script kiddie
A script kiddie is a non-expert who breaks into computer systems by using pre-packaged automated tools written by others, usually with little understanding. These are the outcasts of the hacker community.

Hacktivist
A hacktivist is a hacker who utilizes technology to announce a social, ideological, religious, or political message. In general, most hacktivism involves website defacement or denial-of-service attacks. In more extreme cases, hacktivism is used as tool for Cyberterrorism. Hacktivists are also known as Neo Hackers