Then I got tired of watching them get blamed for it.
Phishing, pretexting, social engineering — testing organizations by going after the part of them that answers the phone.
I was good at it, and that’s the uncomfortable part. It was never hard, and it was never because the people were careless. It worked because I was patient, because I picked my moment, and because a well-built message arrives exactly when someone is busy, tired, and moving fast.
Then the report would go out, and someone would get a talking-to.
But fear is the precise state an attack manufactures. Urgency, embarrassment, the sense of being caught out — that’s the ground an attacker needs, and a program built on fear is running the same playbook albeit with better intentions.
What actually helps is noticing. The half-second where someone registers that something feels off and slows down instead of clicking. That’s a skill. It can be practiced. And it has surprisingly little to do with knowing what a phishing email looks like.
A card game that lets a room safely experience real attacks instead of sitting through a module. Live sessions for teams who want an hour that people still bring up a week later. And writing about how manipulation actually works, for anyone who’d rather understand it than fear it.
Get curious. Stay secure.
Sixteen years in offensive security — social engineering and adversarial emulation
Designer of Hack Attack: Defense, published 2026 — Offense in development
Master’s degree in Learning Experience Design and Educational Technology, 2025
Conference speaker on game design, social engineering, and human-centered security
Seven years volunteering on child online safety
I live in Utah with my wife and kids, which is a continuous education in how people make decisions under pressure. Most of what I know about explaining risk without causing panic, I learned at a kitchen table rather than in a boardroom.
Play the game
Hack Attack: Defense — real attacks and defenses, on cards.
Book a session
Sixty minutes with your team, on-site.
Read the writing
Essays on attention, manipulation, and why smart people click.