You may have joined our last session, Weaponizing Academic Trust, where we discussed how attackers exploit higher education's institutional culture. But often, the breach doesn't begin with a university server—it starts with our online presence.
Too many of us have fallen into the trap of privacy nihilism—the fatalistic belief that, because some of our data is already exposed (in the OPM breach, the Equifax breach, or the 23andMe breach), protecting the rest is futile. This apathy is the social engineer’s greatest asset.
Join Ben Syn for a strategic deep dive into how to Counter-Open Source Intelligence. We will move beyond the basic ego surf to audit the true scope of our digital footprint. From the invisible economy of data brokers to the public reality of voter rolls, we will look at ourselves through the eyes of an attacker—and learn how to reclaim control.
This session will cover:
- The Apathy Trap: Why the "it’s already out there" mindset creates a self-fulfilling prophecy of compromise.
- The Data Broker Economy: Actionable steps to automate the removal of your profile from people-search engines like Whitepages and Spokeo.
- The Price of Convenience: Analyzing the trade-offs of the Surveillance Economy, from retail loyalty apps to third-party integrations.
- Stewardship Strategies: How to curate a digital presence that balances professional visibility with personal security.
Why this matters: We cannot protect the institution if we do not protect ourselves. By moving from passive apathy to active stewardship, we harden the human target against the next wave of social engineering.
Speaker bio: Ben Syn is the Director of University and Career Education at KnowBe4, where he leads the security awareness strategy for over 1.3 million students across 250+ academic institutions globally. Operating at the intersection of cybersecurity and the humanities, Ben holds both a CISSP and a Master’s in English (Rhetoric), using this dual lens to bridge the gap between technical defense and human behavior. Drawing on over a decade of experience as a university Senior Instructor in persuasion, he applies a deep understanding of language to decode the linguistic tells of modern social engineering. His work equips the entire academic ecosystem—from faculty and staff to students—with the cognitive tools to navigate AI-driven deception, championing a culture that "protects openness without closing doors" by establishing critical thinking as the ultimate firewall.