A Human To Know: Keren Elazari

Elizabeth Weingarten
Context: By New America
1 min readSep 29, 2017

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Conversations with the people who are changing the way we live our lives online.

Flickr/Photo: James Duncan Davidson

Growing up in Tel Aviv in the 1980s, Keren Elazari read encyclopedia volumes for fun — “that’s as nerdy as it gets!” — and devoured science fiction novels. Fictional characters like Angelina Jolie’s character, Acid Burn, from the movie Hackers, inspired her to become a cybersecurity expert. Known for her 2014 TED talk where she argued that hackers are the Internet’s immune system, Elazari recently became the first hacker to grace the cover of Forbes Israel. I caught up with her over Skype this week to talk about her legacy and work, and what she sees as the biggest cyber misunderstandings and threats today. An edited version of the interview is below.

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Director of @BetterLifeLab’s Global Gender Parity Initiative, Editor of #HumansofCybersecurity, and Editor at @behscientist. @Slate & @TheAtlantic alum.