Layer 8 Podcast

Jeff Tomkiewicz , aka The Gh0stface Killer is a social engineer who is employed but a health services company. He will also be teaching a pretexting workshop at the Layer 8 Conference! You can find out more about that here: https://layer8conference.com/training-at-layer-8-conference-2025/ In this episode, we learn how Jeff moved from the military to becoming a social engineer where he does red tea...

My OSINT Training is a company created by Griffin ( @hatless1der ) Glynn and Micah ( @webbreacher ) Hoffman. Their goal was to create affordable high quality OSINT training, and they'll be offering that at the Layer 8 Conference in June! You can sign up today for their class! In this episode, we also spoke about the National Child Protection Task Force ( NCPTF ) and how Micah and Griffin condu...

Get your ticket to the Layer 8 Conference on June 14, in Boston! In this episode, we're joined by Nico Dekens , aka Dutch_OSINTGuy where he talks about lessons in OSINT including the value of operational security, ethics and classes he teaches. He also tells us about his 5W1H method of performing an investigation. We also discussed some blog posts he wrote for ShadowDragon , including one about OS...

Aidan Raney is the founder of Farnsworth Intelligence , an OSINT company that focuses on due diligence investigations, among others. Aidan freely shares content and tools, has been a volunteer with Trace Labs , teaches OSINT and OpSec. He presented at both BSidesSF and ShmooCon about " Catching Some Phisherman " where he exposed a large phishing organization. Aidan has experience with using Artifi...

Brian Harris from the Covert Access Team is a social engineer, a physical pentester and a member of the black team . If you've heard of blue team, purple team and red team but not black team, you can hear what that is about in this episode! Brian explains why all businesses should have their physical access tested, regardless of whether they believe the tester would be successful. Also, is it fair...

Nathaniel Fried is the CEO of OSINT Industries . He's also one of the founding members and current chair of UK OSINT , a non-profit public meetup group. In this episode, we talk about ways to perform OSINT with only a single selector, such as an email address, a phone number or a username. We also discussed how he discovered that Donetsk was using western-based IT tools, in spite of sanctions. Nat...

Matt Linton ( @0xMatt )is a Googler and former NASA employee and red teamer. He has some opinions on the way we do phishing testing today with comparisons to how fire safety evolved. Even better, he offers solid solutions on how we can do better phishing testing so that people better understand the expectations of them and to still keep the enterprise protected. In this episode, we discuss a blog...

Jennifer is a hacker, a social engineer, a locksmith and a private investigator. In this episode, we talk about how she got into each of those fields and about her path to being a part of her company's red team. She has some great social engineering stories including where she's climbing through a ceiling!

Phil Eil is an investigative journalist who has written for publications such as Vice, Huffington Post, the Boston Globe and the Providence Phoenix. But there was always one story he wanted to write. In his new book, Prescription for Pain , Phil documents the story of Dr. Paul Volkman, a midwestern physician who was convicted of distribution of a controlled substance resulting in death, plus addit...

This is the second part of a two-part podcast episode with Alethe Denis . If you missed the first part, you'll want to go back and listen to that first as this episode picks up, mid-story where Alethe has just caught the eye of a security guard during a social engineering engagement. Can she evade the guard or will the job come to an end? Alethe is a senior security consultant with Bishop Fox...

Alethe Denis is the first ever three-time guest to the Layer 8 Podcast. When Alethe comes on, we can swap stories for hours. And we did! This is part 1 of a two-part episode, as Alethe had so many great stories to share. For this episode, she talks her way into buildings, tells us how she prepares her OSINT and when she knows it's time to go into the building. Check back in two weeks for part...

For this episode, we're joined by Cynthia Navarro and Bret Anderson from OsmosisCon . They are the two people that head up the annual OSINT conference in Las Vegas. The conference will be October 20-22 and can be attended in person or remotely. Cynthia and Bret tell us about the origins of Osmosis, the certification they offer and we also talk about some methods, ethics and share some fun inve...

Andreas Heideck , the CEO of the Germany-based Impossible Security , joined the show to tell some incredible social engineering stories. The part that is different about his stories is the simplicity of his pretexts and thought process. As we tend to overthink these engagements, Andreas shows us how to stay in the moment, choose pretexts that make sense, are very simple and very successful.

This episode is a great discussion with Justin Seitz ( @jms_dot_py ) and Kennedy Chappell ( @kcath23 ) of Permanent Record Research . They also write the free Substack newsletter https://www.bullshithunting.com/ along with its fun weekend edition, For the Weekend Warriors, Weirdos & Whackjobs, where you can get even more fun insight into the work they do and the lives they lead. In this episod...

Note: This episode contains language that would be considered not safe for work (NSFW) and around some children. Bluma Janowitz, aka @x25Princess is a social engineering instructor and one of the original phone phreaking hackers. She has also worked as a phone sex operator and as a dominatrix. Her work in these areas, as well as her own personal survival, has taught her the social engineering skil...

Alex Lozano is the founder and CEO of the Barcelona-based Cibergy and is a professor of OSINT at the University of Autonoma de Barcelona. In this episode, Alex talks about the role of OSINT in corporations and businesses. How it can enhance the business and also show trends and potential threats. We also discussed the future of OSINT and how Artificial Intelligence (AI) may be able to help and whe...

At the Layer 8 Podcast, we aim to get a global perspective on social engineering and OSINT topics. For this episode, we spoke with Ajaka Shamsudeen, also known as @Mydeen4u on Twitter. Ajaka is a part of the SE awareness and education community in Nigeria and here he shares his perspective of the state of social engineering in Nigeria. Ajaka is also an alumnus of Cyblack , an organization that is...

Hervé is the creator of the non-profit and non-governmental organization OpenFacto in France. This organization teaches investigational skills to journalists to help them find the truth in facts. We also talk about using OSINT for good and in this episode, Hervé tells a story about how he did exactly that and very likely saved lives with one specific investigation and how he performed it. OpenFact...

Bex Markwick joins us today to tell us what she feels is wrong about the way we do phishing testing today. We'll talk about some of the areas where those might not go in the right direction and why, but also how we can do them better and what we should be focusing on. Bex has presented twice at PancakesCon and gave a keynote presentation at BSides Basingstoke . You can find all of Bex's pr...

Tom Hocker is the Director at Trace Labs . Trace Labs is a non-profit organization who crowdsources OSINT skills from the public to find information and clues on people in missing persons cases. As mentioned in this episode, you can get more information about Trace Labs, get in contact with Tom and jump into a Search Party all by joining their Discord channel here: https://discord.gg/tracelabs

Chris Pritchard is a UK-based social engineer with Lares Consulting. He has accessed some of the most secure facilities, sometimes seemingly too easily. In this episode, Chris (aka @Ghostie_) talks about what was his process to access seemingly secure facilities like airports and casinos. He also gives his thoughts on dealing with the adrenaline rush of getting in and also has advice on how to get...

Rae, aka @Wondersmith_Ra e is back! After chatting about maritime OSINT in episode 75, Rae came back to discuss her book " Deep Dive - Exploring the Real World Value of Open Source Intelligence " and to talk about what skills or mindset is important in the OSINT world. We also talked about how to practice your OSINT skills in a realistic way by using Kase Scenarios , a learning site she...

Dylan is named the Magician yet he doesn't do card tricks, doesn't pull a rabbit from a hat and doesn't cut his assistant in half. Dylan is a social engineer who earned that moniker during an engagement. In this episode, Dylan will explain the job where he was tagged "The Magician." We'll also talk about the planning that went into his engagement and other aspects of soci...

Ritu Gill is back! A return guest who first appeared on episode 20, Ritu (also known as OSINT Techniques) is back to talk about Operational Security, about how to create and curate sock puppets, how to keep the integrity of an investigation and to tell us about Forensic OSINT , a Chrome extension that can easily help with investigations! This episode is brought to you by Compass Cyber Guard. To fi...

Our host, Patrick Laverty, has gotten to talk with experts in OSINT and social engineering and heard their stories. But Patrick has never told one of his own. That's what we get here as he explains how he got access to sensitive areas of a bank during a social engineering job. This episode is brought to you by Compass Cyber Guard. To find out more about Cyber Guard's social engineering or...