Episode 142: Learning Covert Entry with Brian Harris

Dr. Abbie Maroño is a behavioral scientist and the Director of Education for Social Engineer, LLC. She frequently consults on body language, non-verbals and public speaking, all using data backed by science. She is a frequent contributor on Court TV and consults with attorneys on questioning techniques. She also wrote "The Upper Hand: Mastering Persuasion and Getting What You Want with the Science of Social Engineering" You can learn more about Dr. Abbie on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/doctorabbieofficial/ or TikTok at https://www.tiktok.com/@doctorabbieofficial

John Bejakovic is a business copywriter who writes a daily newsletter at bejakovic.com, an online journal and wrote a book about influence techniques that he has learned. He acknowledges the work of Robert Cialdini and then builds on Cialdini's work. His book, with the shortened title "The 10 Commandments of Con Men..." gives 10 different influence techniques along with stories, research and John's own experience in learning and using these techniques. These are all areas that any social engineer can use to enhance their own skills.

The Layer 8 Conference will have a full scope social engineering capture the flag (CTF) competition this year. This is an event that has been created by John Costa and Jordan Saleh. In this episode, we hear from John and Jordan about their experience in creating CTFs and their thought process in building this one. If you're interested in being a social engineer or love CTF competitions, you'll want to be at the Layer 8 Conference and compete in this event!

Brett Redman, the Chief Operating Officer of OSINT Industries returns to the Layer 8 Podcast. He talks a bit about platform and training opportunities available through his company. We also talked about the role that AI plays in OSINT investigations. Brett also told us about his conversations he has with law enforcement agencies on using OSINT leading up to large scale public events such as the World Cup. Brett will be a speaker at the Layer 8 Conference this year with his "It's all about the method, man by Redman." If you don't get the references, you'll want to check out this episode, or his talk at Layer 8 or even the Layer 8 podcast the last time he was on.

For this episode, our host attended a covert entry class with Covert Access Team in Copenhagen, and spoke with Gunther Royen and Scott McLean about their experiences. They talk tales of physical security bypass, lessons learned and give some tips on how to access some seemingly locked facilities.

On this episode, we're excited to announce that the OSINT keynote speaker for the Layer 8 Conference will be Micah Hoffman! See more about Micah here: https://layer8conference.com/keynote-speakers-2026/ In this episode, Micah is joined by Lisette Abercrombie, aka Technisette! Lisette and Micah are creators of MyOSINT Training and both will be teaching a course at the Layer 8 Conference on June 3-4. Tickets to the course are available at: https://www.myosint.training/courses/layer8-2026Lisette will also be presenting at the Layer 8 Conference talking about some of the mistakes she has learned from during her career as an OSINT investigator working in law enforcement. Come meet Lisette and attend her presentation at the Layer 8 Conference this year!

Brian Harris is the creator of Covert Access Team, a company that performs physical security testing. That can include testing whether your detection and response is up to snuff, or if your physical controls such as locks or PAC systems can be defeated, or even whether social engineering would work. Brian also teaches classes in these topics, including one where you learn all the skills and then get to actually test them out on a real facility. In this episode, we'll talk about all aspects of physical security testing.

Carter Zupancich is a Solutions Architecture Manager at Doppel. In this episode, Carter tells us how far AI has come in assisting with phone phishing, or vishing. AI has been built up to where it's almost impossible to detect that you're not speaking to a real human and it can do OSINT lookups in just milliseconds, to assist with information on the call. Carter will be presenting at the Layer 8 Conference, happening June 5-6 in Boston!

Jennifer Shannon is a Senior Security Consultant for Secure Ideas. Kevin Tackett is formerly known as Kevin Johnson, the CEO and founder of Secure Ideas. On this episode, we talked about why Kevin tells some prospective clients that he won't do social engineering for them. We also go into some SE stories, some favorite pretexts and why social engineers get stopped by the people they're testing.

Mathieu Gaucheler is the Subject Matter Expert at Maltego where he works with clients on custom OSINT solutions and also runs their public CTFs and conference demonstrations. He co-wrote a whitepaper on discovering some "behind the scenes" of pig butchering scams and how they are often Scam as a Service offerings. Maltego is a Silver Sponsor of the Layer 8 Conference on June 5-6, so come see them in Boston!