Desenmascara.me in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Vision 2030 is a unique transformative economic and social blueprint that is opening Saudi Arabia to the world. 

"Our country is rich in its natural resources. We are not dependent solely on oil for our energy needs. Gold, phosphate, uranium, and many other valuable minerals are found beneath our lands. But our real wealth lies in the ambition of our people and the potential of our younger generation. They are our nation’s pride and the architects of our future."

Saudi Vision 2030

Under this program, @athack, the biggest infosec conference in Saudi Arabia was born. 

It had a comprehensive agenda with speakers all over the world so the Saudis don´t need to go outside to see on stage to gurus like Bruce Schneier, successful entrepreneurs like Robert. M. Lee, the people hacker Jenny Radcliffe, or the Hacker Jayson E. Street.

In total around 250 international security professionals worldwide were brought to the event. I had the extraordinary opportunity to assist to the @Hack Arsenal

In the @Hack Arsenal area I had the chance along many other security researches to demoed the tools we are working on.

The fraud in Arabia Saudi is aligned with the worldwide metrics, increasing constantly. 

I did show some last minute examples with fraudulent websites which popped up in my Twitter stream as Advertisements of Fraudulent websites!

Also with some Fraudulent websites in Arabic which I had no idea what they were about but someone from the public thankfully did clarify it to me :-)

It seems the audience got interested in the topic. 

After the session there were quite a few interesting questions and interactions with the audience:

I have had the opportunity to met new and quite interesting people, to learn a bit more about other cultures and the Islam, and even I did an interview for the Saudi Federation for Cybersecurity, Programming and drones, one of the main organizers in partnership with other entities :)

There is great young talent in Saudi Arabia and everyone has faith on the Saudi Vision 2030. Saudis know the importance of learning programming, soon it will be as important as learning to read and write. Part of their strategy is to create one programmer out of very 100 Saudi nationals by 2030, in addition to encouraging innovation and creativity and achieving global leadership. This was our grain of salt to support their vision. 

Thank you toolswatch team and to all the arsenal presenters for such a great experience!

I have to say it has been an impressive experience to visit the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and to felt the warm and kindness of their people. Hats off to the organization of atHack!!