DIVD is changing
From 2022, the Dutch Institute for Vulnerability Disclosure will play an even more significant role in making the internet safe as it received the ‘Cyber Resilience Reinforcement’ grant for 2022-2024 from the Digital Trust Center. DIVD is a group of several dozen volunteers who scan the entire internet for known vulnerabilities and report it to those who can fix it. For example, they have prevented many ransomware attacks and data leaks, as can be read in the report ‘Vulnerable through software - Lessons resulting from security breaches relating to Citrix software’ by the Dutch Safety Board. One of the main conclusions of that report is that “(voluntary) security researchers play a crucial role in incident response.” The DIVD currently plays an important and guiding role in the log4j crisis.
With this grant, the Dutch government underlines the value of DIVD for the cyber resilience of the Netherlands and the rest of the world. To support the volunteers of DIVD in their work, paid positions will be created for Lennaert Oudshoorn (research coordinator and head of the DIVD-CSIRT), Victor Gevers (head of research) and Chris van ‘t Hof (director). Administrative support will be provided by LunaVia.
In addition, DIVD has now also signed a cooperation agreement with the Dutch National Cyber Security Center to share data about found online vulnerabilities and report findings to potential victims and other partners. Furthermore, the DIVD helps to establish The Dutch Security Hotline for various organizations with which they already work to have a greater reach and be able to proceed more effectively with reporting vulnerabilities. DIVD has also started an international Computer Security Incident Response Team so that international reports can also be passed on to representatives in various countries. Finally, in 2022 the DIVD Academy will start to train the next generation of helpful hackers.
For further information, you can contact our new director Chris van ‘t Hof, via question@divd.nl or +31 70 41 90 309.
Last modified: 23 Nov 2022 21:17