Joe Leon

I led a Python Flask-based data cleansing SaaS product's product design, engineering, and marketing. After building the product and gaining market share, I sold the business with my partners in 2018.

I delivered the following training and talks at information security conferences.

x33fcon, May 2021: What the F#?
GrayHat Con, October 2020: A Practical Introduction to Bypassing Application Whitelisting
Black Hat Asia, September 2020: Intrusion Operations
Wild West Hackin' Cast, September 2020: Offensive MalDocs in 2020
DERPCON, May 2020: Bypassing Application Whitelisting
Pancakes Con, March 2020: Living Off the Land with a Side of Bubble Tea
WW Wild West Hackin' Fest, March 2020: An Introduction to Developing Phishing Malware
Black Hat USA, August 2019: Intrusion Operations

I taught a course about gaining initial access to a target network (e.g., phishing, business email compromise, etc.) at Black Hat USA in 2021. I helped create the learning materials and then delivered the training to two groups of students.

Developed a graduate-level course about social engineering and IT security during my master’s program.

Course Thesis:

All organizations confront social engineering, and most major cyberattacks start with a social engineering infection vector. Any serious cybersecurity professional must understand how social engineering works (on a psychological and technological level) and its fundamental role in network security.

Principle Learning Objectives:

Explore the role of trust in society and how social engineers deceive that trust.

Identify how the nature of the internet has enabled social engineering to flourish.

Describe what “human vulnerabilities” allow for social engineering attacks to succeed.

Identify the fundamental psychological principles used by attackers.

Learn how to design effective social engineering campaigns.

Study the major social engineering use cases (financial, national security, and political).

Explore how automatic detection of social engineering works.

Identify ways to defend against social engineering (both active and passive).

Predict future social engineering trends.