Martijn Bijleveld wins SURF Security & Privacy Award 2024

Martijn Bijleveld, cyber security programme manager at MBO Digitaal, has won the SURF Security & Privacy Award 2024 for his extraordinary commitment to the MBO Cyber Security programme. Bijleveld accepted the award on 27 June during the SURF Security and Privacy Conference.

Bijleveld is the driving force behind the Cyber Security mbo programme, which aims to increase the cyber resilience of the mbo sector. Within the grant programme, over 50 mbo institutions are working together to share knowledge, identify vulnerabilities and exchange best practices to better protect themselves against cybercrime.

Broader than mbo

The Cyber Security programme is an example of how to organise cyber resilience institution-wide. It started in 2022, after the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science asked mbo, hbo and wo to come up with a plan to increase cyber resilience within the education sector. The mbo picked this up in the form of the mbo cyber security programme.

Bijleveld actively shares the knowledge gained from the programme with universities and proactively seeks cooperation with various bodies. Among other things, he has also been the driving force behind the selection of a Governance Risk & Compliance (GRC) tool that is not only available for the mbo, but for the entire education sector. With this tool, institutions can map their security risks and collaborate and learn from each other more conveniently.

Inspiring example

Under Martijn's leadership, the MBO is taking big steps. Starting this year, for example, all mbo institutions are using the same information security assessment framework as the rest of the sector. The assessment framework determines the maturity level of resilience within the entire sector.

Wim Biemolt, chairman of SURFcert, which grants the award annually together with security communities SCIPR and SCIRT, said during the presentation: "The Cyberveiligheid mbo programme is not only an example of how to organise cyber resilience across institutions. Thanks to Martijn Bijleveld's interpretation of it, it also contributes to the cyber resilience of the education sector as a whole."

About the SURF Security & Privacy Award

The SURF Security & Privacy Award is presented annually during the SURF Security and Privacy Conference, a two-day event for security experts, information security officers, privacy officers or data protection officers at universities, universities of applied sciences and research institutes.