Human Hacking with Peter Warmka

Today’s threat actors and social engineers leverage social media
to observe individuals’ patterns and habits. They encounter you
at a coffee shop or another familiar spot. They begin to
establish trust, which makes you more susceptible to their
tactics. 


Today’s guest is Peter Warmka. Peter is a retired CIA officer
with over two decades of breaching the security of organizations
overseas in pursuit of intelligence. He is the founder of The
Counterintelligence Institute, author of two books, conference
speaker, consultant, and educator on the dangers of human
hacking.
Show Notes:

[0:56] - Peter shares his background and what he has done in
his interesting career.

[3:27] - The Counterintelligence Institute helps
organizations and individuals understand what types of
information threat actors are trying to steal.

[6:08] - Peter discusses the surprise his friends and family
experienced when learning he had been working for the CIA.

[9:13] - There are some skills that Peter had to learn when
going into this career, but other skills came more naturally.

[11:15] - Trust is different in various societies, and
Americans are particularly vulnerable.

[13:31] - Peter explains how he developed trust with others.

[16:00] - There are ways to leverage trust in this type of
work.

[19:32] - Peter discusses international breaches and the
types of intelligence breaches from other governments.

[23:11] - The internet has made information so readily
available to everyone, including information you may not want
them to have.

[25:19] - There are different types of information found on
the different kinds of social media platforms that all come
together to paint a whole picture.

[28:09] - Human hacking, or social engineering, can be
accomplished through five different communication channels.

[31:21] - Peter describes a very powerful and common
in-person scenario.

[35:53] - We have to get away from the silo-approach,
thinking that breaches are only coming from the IT network.

[37:24] - Peter wrote a book in the early days of Covid-19
for organizations. He then wrote a book geared more towards
individuals.

[39:41] - Privacy and security settings are great, but
platforms can still be hacked.

[41:56] - It shouldn’t be “trust, then verify.” It needs to
be “verify, then trust.”

[44:27] - AI tools have made things even more complicated for
victims and easy for threat actors.

[46:37] - LinkedIn specifically is overwhelmed with fake
accounts.

[48:50] - Workplace education on this topic is backwards in
organizations since they are seen as compliance training.



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