Mind Hacker
Your people have done the module. They can still be talked out of a password. Mind Hacker closes that gap by showing them how it is actually done, live, on the room.
Most security awareness training explains the threat. People pass the quiz, tick the box, and forget it by the following month. The problem is not the information, it is that nobody has ever felt what an attack feels like from the inside.
Mind Hacker works from a simple observation: hacking a computer and hacking a person run on the same engine. Deception, misdirection, and the exploitation of trust. A phishing email and a piece of stagecraft both succeed by getting somebody to hand over more than they meant to. That parallel is the whole session, and it is why the demonstrations land as a warning rather than a party trick.
What the room actually gets
- Social engineering, demonstrated. The techniques an attacker uses to earn trust and extract information, performed live so the audience watches the mechanics work on a colleague, then sees them unpacked.
- Phishing that looks like the real thing. Why a convincing approach is convincing, and the specific tells that survive when the branding is perfect.
- Why confidence is the vulnerability. The people most certain they would never fall for it are consistently the easiest to move. That is uncomfortable, and it is the point.
- What is coming next. Emerging threats, handled through storytelling so the room leaves with a picture of the next wave rather than a catalogue of the last one.
- What to do about it. The response matters more than the recognition. What to check, who to tell, and how to raise it without feeling foolish.
Where it fits
Mind Hacker works two ways. As the closing keynote on an existing security program it re-establishes what has already been taught and adds the threats the modules did not cover. As a standalone conference session it is an introduction to how modern attacks really work, for an audience that has never had formal training.
The content is tailored before the day to your industry and to whatever your people are actually being targeted with. The threat landscape changes, so the session changes with it.
How it is prepared
The brief that matters is short: who is in the room, what has to change by the end of it, and what your people are currently being targeted with. From there the session is built around your industry, and around whether your team has already worked through formal training or is starting from scratch. Those are two different rooms and they do not get the same hour.
The demonstrations and the threats they illustrate are updated as the tactics change.
On the day the shape is consistent: the demonstration comes first, the explanation second, and the application third. The last of those is the part most keynotes skip, and for a security audience it is the part that decides whether anything is done differently on Monday.
What it looked like in practice
Tourism Australia had already completed a month-long series of security training when Mind Hacker was brought in to close it. The brief was to tie the program together and leave the team not just informed but energised. The session re-established the lessons already learnt and covered threats the program had not touched, and attendees afterwards called it "eye-opening", "highly engaging" and "unlike anything they'd experienced before".
- Format
- Keynote, demonstration led
- Length
- 45 minutes to 1 hour
- Room size
- No upper limit
- Tailored
- To your industry and current threats
Related reading: how Tourism Australia used Mind Hacker to close a month of security training.
Common questions
How long is the session?
Forty-five minutes to an hour. It is a keynote rather than a workshop, so it is sized for a conference slot and not for a training half day, and it runs demonstration led from the start.
How large can the audience be?
There is no upper limit. Keynotes work from around 25 people up to a full conference hall, and Mind Hacker is built for whole-of-staff audiences rather than for a deliberately capped group.
How interactive is it?
The demonstrations run on the people in the room. The audience watches the mechanics work on a colleague and then sees them unpacked, which is the difference between being told that social engineering works and watching it work on somebody they know.
Is the content tailored to our organisation?
Yes. The content is tailored before the day to your industry and to whatever your people are actually being targeted with, and it is shaped differently depending on whether your team has already worked through formal training or is starting from scratch.
How does it fit alongside the security training we already run?
It works either way. As the closing keynote on an existing security program it re-establishes what has already been taught and adds the threats the modules did not cover, which is how Tourism Australia used it to finish a month of security training. As a standalone conference session it is an introduction to how modern attacks really work.
Who is it for?
Whole-of-staff audiences, from around 25 people up to a full conference hall. A room that has already completed every module gets the reinforcement that makes the material stick, and a room that has never had formal training gets the introduction to how modern attacks really work. Either way the content is tailored beforehand to your industry and to what your people are currently being targeted with.
Other sessions
- MindSet. Keynote, 1 hour, from 25 people with no upper limit.
- Body Language & Rapport. Keynote, up to 1 hour.
- Memory Techniques. Workshop, 1 hour.
Closing out a security program, or opening a conference?
Tell Phoenix about the audience, the outcome you need and the date. You will get a straight recommendation on format, usually within one business day.