Peter Warmka

I take the audience through the stages of a social engineering attack starting with information collection on the organization as well as people who work there. I then demonstrate how this information is utilized across 4 different social engineering attack vectors to effectively manipulate targets thereby circumventing technological controls and leading to security breaches.

Most successful data breaches are initiated by human hacking. Threat actors carefully select, assess, and manipulate key employees within a target organization who in turn become the “insider threat.” Advanced social engineering techniques are employed to effectively circumvent the policies, procedures and technological controls put in place to safeguard proprietary information, client data and sensitive personnel records. For over 20 years of his career with the Central Intelligence Agency, Peter developed expertise in the identification, assessment, and manipulation of insiders to breach the security of target organizations in pursuit of high value foreign intelligence. He now shares his insight to help protect organizations and employees against external threats.

The prospect of their organization suffering a devastating data breach is becoming a growing concern among C-Suite executives worldwide. Such breaches are conducted by a variety of threat actors who design and execute increasingly more sophisticated attacks to steal information (proprietary, client data, customer records) or to conduct financial extorsion in the form of ransomware or business email compromise (BEC). Such attacks can lead to a significant loss in operations and even force the enterprise out of business. C-Suite executives can no longer view security, whether physical or cyber, as a cost accounting item, but rather, an investment in people, processes and technologies. In this session, Peter will leverage his expertise as a former intelligence officer, to help attendees understand the mindset of threat actors and the methodologies they use to turn employees into insider threats. He will then provide tips on how the C-Suite can lead and foster a successful trans