The Social-Engineer Podcast

In this episode, Chris Hadnagy and Ryan MacDougall are joined by Michael Fortune.  Michael is the Security Behaviours Team Manager for British Telecom (BT) UK. Michael has been with BT for an amazing 22 years, where he is currently BT’s expert on security behavior, insider threat behavior, and social engineering, and helps guides the business around these risks. With over 160 thousand employees across the globe in his charge, Michael helps run a team of experts who support and drive security programs for the company.  July 19, 2021

00:00 – Intro 

CLUTCH

03:37 – Michael Fortune Intro

05:22 – Michael’s Path – how has your background in psychology helped with cyber and information security?

06:10 – Have you been able to use psychological principles in eduction?

07:27 – How do you keep education engaging for 160,000 people?

10:07 – Top down approach

12:51 – You are essentially performing an SE gig in order to get an SE gig

14:03 – What’s your rule set?

15:59 – Senior Management Buy In – people are afraid of doing that so they don’t do it.  How do you approach that?

 19:08 – Where is the ethical line in using social engineering to get buy-in?

21:21 – Explaining to upper management the repercussions of not doing this training

22:52 – Were your CISO and Director of Protections always on board or did you have to convince them? 

25:56 – What have you learned from your hundreds of thousands of SMishing attacks under your belt?

29:18 – Advice about getting buy-in from the top down can work for any sized company

 30:30 – When you talk about personalizing the sessions that you do, do you personalize to the department, or 

33:05 – Following through with a good program

36:24 – The idea is to get people to do it

36:38 – What colleagues do you respect most in the industry? 

  • Steve Benton – Deputy CISO at BT 
  • Chris Hadnagy

39:22 – What are some action steps that corporations should start doing right now?

42:00 – Experience is everything

42:40 –

Book Recommendations 

44:48 – You need patience, because human being is different and complex

45:13 – Michael Fortune on the internet: Michael.2.Fortune@bt.com


In this episode, Chris Hadnagy is joined by Teresa Abram.  Teresa is the founder of Handwriting P.I., a full-service handwriting analysis business. Teresa is not only a handwriting analyzer, but also a professional personality investigator who can spot the red flags of a dangerous personality, identify someone’s strengths, and uncover what is holding someone back. Teresa’s interest in handwriting started when she was just 14 years old and has led her to hosting her own podcast, “A Most Unusual T Party” where she uses the letter T to unlock pieces of a person’s story...which is fascinating to listen to! July 12, 2021

00:00: Intro 

CLUTCH 

03:01: Teresa Abram Intro 

05:00: How did you get into this at 14 years old? 

07:50: How does one practice handwriting analysis? 

09:05: What is scary handwriting?  Psychopath scale. 

10:00: Chris’ handwriting 

11:20: Can you fool handwriting analysis? 

14:00: Can this be used by companies to vet potential employees? 

16:05: InfoSec and Handwriting are similar. All science is accurate until it’s not. 

18:35: Universal gestures  

21:53: Discussion about Social-Engineer COO Ryan 

24:19: Does Handwriting PI do handwriting analysis for employers?  Combined with other disciplines. 

26:31: Chris’ handwriting sample 

27:23: Banned by Hitler as witchcraft 

28:16: How long has handwriting analysis been around? 

28:51: Can you analyze in different languages?  How? 

  • Incongruency 
  • Methods 

34:06: Methodology continued.  Turning the paper over.  Go to the letter “t”. 

37:21: How long does handwriting analysis take to do? 

38:12: What is another way you work with companies? 

39:30: Wrap-up 

Teresa on the internet: 

Instagram: Handwriting_PI 

 

40:47: Teresa’s mentor - Sheila Lowe, President of the American Handwriting Analysis Foundation 

41:54: Favorite Books:  

44:00: How old is Teresa’s Daughter?  And how did she like having a Mom who would read her handwriting? 

46:00: Outro 


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