NordVPN forms advisory board, taps Have I Been Pwned's Troy Hunt as first member

NordVPN forms informational board, taps Accept I Been Pwned's Troy Hunt as first member

(Image credit: Hereafter)

Troy Hunt, the Australian cybersecurity adept who set and still runs the compromised-password search website haveibeenpwned.com, has joined one of the world'south best VPN companies as an counselor.

In a press release, NordVPN said Hunt was the outset security expert to join a new advisory squad that "will share their expertise and provide guidance on the company'southward security and commercial practices".

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Tom Okman, co-founder of NordSec, said: "We are very excited to greet Troy Hunt as an counselor. Our product family unit is growing rapidly, and nosotros accept aggressive plans ahead.

"That'south why it'southward important to accept a team of professionals who tin back up united states of america by providing their expert insights and strategic communication."

Contained squad

NordVPN explained that the team will include experts from a range of backgrounds and expertise, including engineering science, digital privacy, cybersecurity and academia.

Information technology went on to explain that the advisors will "provide strategic guidance and help shape the visitor's future by sharing unique perspectives, insights, and trends."

This isn't the outset time that the VPN company has looked to tertiary-political party experts to influence its production direction. It's already conducted ii independent reviews of its zero-logs policy and helped to launch the VPN Trust Initiative, an system setting guidelines and standards for the VPN industry.

"I'thou impressed with NordVPN's product and their desire to appoint with independent experts to drive farther innovation," Hunt said in the press release.

"Their openness and transparency with the way they run their services combined with their vision for the future is a big part of what attracted me to the arrangement. I'grand looking frontward to partnering with NordVPN and helping them do more than for digital privacy."

Converting a skeptic

On his own blog, Chase explained that the partnership came about during a discussion he had with Okman in which Hunt was skeptical about the consumer VPN industry in general.

"Why should people trust NordVPN?" Hunt asked. "The promise of 'no logs' in particular is a favourite of VPN providers yet obviously, the reality doesn't e'er meet the promise."

The most recent contained inspect of NordVPN swayed Hunt on that point, but he wasn't done.

"There were also aspects of NordVPN I told Tom needed work, especially effectually their messaging in marketing textile," he added. "Marketing people like to embellish but, in my view, there were occasions where that went across what you could reasonably expect a VPN to do."

Hunt didn't specify exactly what he was referring to. But, for example, some VPN companies might imply that using a VPN volition protect you lot from malware infection when it really tin can't.

"And so Tom asked me if I'd similar to get an adviser to NordVPN and invest a bit more than time than merely a telephone telephone call sharing these ideas," Hunt wrote.

Hunt said that although this partnership was "a commercial relationship," he was non becoming a NordVPN employee and would still "remain independent."

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Nicholas Fearn is a freelance engineering science journalist and copywriter from the Welsh valleys. His piece of work has appeared in publications such as the FT, the Contained, the Daily Telegraph, The Next Spider web, T3, Android Central, Computer Weekly, and many others. He also happens to exist a diehard Mariah Carey fan!