Hacker | researcher | Advisor
With over 24 years of experience as a hacker, researcher, and advisor, Tom Van de Wiele is an established name in the European cybersecurity sector. He is frequently consulted as an expert in offensive security, critical infrastructure, AI, and tackling complex cybercrime.
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Over a career spanning more than 24 years, Tom has done what most security professionals only read about. He has uncovered international industrial espionage rings, hacked networks, banks, power plants and ATMs, remotely taken over container ships and mainframes, and trained law enforcement and investigative journalists in how hacker techniques actually work. His work has taken him across more than 20 countries, advising organisations that cannot afford to find out the hard way what their vulnerabilities are.
That depth of day to day hands-on experience is what makes Tom’s presentations different. He doesn’t lecture from slides, he brings audiences inside the hacker’s mind, and shows how that perspective changes everything about how organisations approach security. Where most security communication relies on fear and compliance, Tom works from a single, more useful premise: understanding how attackers think is the first step to actually stopping them. And how to bring that understanding in story-form to audiences in a way that is educational, entertaining and visual.
Tom began his career as a young systems administrator, building networks and applications, before moving into professional security consultancy. He built his reputation across leading cybersecurity firms in Belgium and Scandinavia, eventually becoming Principal Security Consultant and Red Team Lead at F-Secure in Denmark. He later served as Principal Threat Researcher at WithSecure, specialising in AI-based attack and defence mechanisms. Today he is the Offensive R&D Lead at one of the world’s largest assurance organisations, focused on AI security validation and the development and testing of autonomous AI attack and defence systems.
As founder of Hacker Minded, Tom’s mission is to help organisations build a genuine cybersecurity culture – one that goes beyond compliance checklists and technical solutionism, and starts with the human and organisational thinking gaps that attackers exploit first.
Tom gives keynotes, talks and guest lectures across Europe, and provides regular commentary on AI, cybersecurity and critical infrastructure topics for TV, radio, print and podcasts. He speaks to executive audiences, technical teams and the general public with equal fluency, translating the realities of offensive security into insight that organisations can actually act on. Because cybersecurity and privacy is not just for the super technical among us.
Cybercrime still pays. Tom Van de Wiele explains why – and what it takes to change that.
Why does cyber-crime still pay? The answer and your defense strategy isn’t in the tools or techniques. It’s in the thinking!
How cyber attacks actually work, and why understanding the attacker’s thinking is more valuable than any security tool you’ll ever buy.
Generative AI is changing the attack landscape faster than most defences can adapt — but how do you cut through the hype to show what it actually means for your organisation’s security strategy.
The reason attackers keep winning isn’t technical, it’s a fundamental mismatch between how criminals think and how defenders are trained to respond.
From power grids and shipping networks to water treatment and financial systems, Tom draws on real-world intrusion experience to show how fragile the infrastructure we depend on actually is, and what it takes to protect it.
Operational security isn’t just for intelligence agencies or geeks, Tom has trained employees, executives, journalists and leadership teams the practical habits that make them harder targets in a world where personal data is the new attack surface.
The apps and services your organisation depends on are built on layers of open-source code nobody fully owns or controls. Tom explains how attackers exploit that, how “free” has a price, and how to regain control before it becomes a breach.
Most organisations invest heavily in digital defences while leaving physical access wide open. Drawing from real Red Team operations performed, Tom shows how attackers combine physical and digital intrusion to devastating effect in a world that has forgotten the physical attack angle.
As AI becomes embedded in business-critical decisions including detection and response systems, so too are attackers leveraging AI for their own attacks. The question isn’t just whether AI works, it’s whether it can be manipulated, deceived or weaponised against you. Tom talks about what is required to turn cyber threat intelligence into a defensive capability and what to focus on when threat modeling against AI autonomous attacks.
Compliance checklists and annual awareness quizzes don’t change behaviour. Colorful mouse pads with slogans and increased complexity does not stop attackers. So is all awareness training a waste of money in a world where 90%+ of all succesfull cyberattacks use phishing and social engineering? Tom talks about security culture built on understanding rather than fear, and shows what that looks like in practice with examples.
Red teaming isn’t just a technical exercise or running a few security tools, it’s a way of thinking that fundamentally changes how organisations identify and close the gaps attackers exploit first. Tom talks about how to think outside the box about your own organisation and how to hire or develop the best Red Team for your organisation.
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