Michael Schrenk
Michael Schrenk has developed software that collects and processes information for some of the biggest news agencies in Europe. Additionally, he has lectured at journalism conferences in Belgium, The Netherlands, and created several weekend workshops for The Centre for Investigative Journalism in London. Mike has also consulted on information security everywhere from Moscow to Silicon Valley, and most places in between. Along the way, he’s been interviewed by BBC, The Christian Science Monitor, National Public Radio, and many others. In addition to his interest in Journalism, Mike conducts a Competitive Intelligence consultancy in Las Vegas and is the author of “Webbots, Spiders, and Screen Scrapers” (San Francisco: No Starch Press, 2012). Michael Schrenk is also an eight-time speaker at the notorious DEF CON hacking conference.
Social Engineering the News
It might be called “Fake News” but it’s really social engineering at a massive scale. And since Fake News taints our information stream, it is also a breach of data integrity, which should be everyone’s concern. To make his point, Michael Schrenk explores the similarities between traditional social engineering and what has led to today’s Fake News epidemic. During this talk, you will learn how hackers use OPSEC (Operations Security) to plan successful social engineering attacks. Additionally, you’ll learn how information is weaponized, who’s making money with fake news, and how it influences decisions at a governmental level (even how countries go to war over false news stories). You’ll also explore techniques to guard against social engineering in your projects.