Episode
07 July 2020 Official episode · Official transcript
penetration test social engineering
An interview with Christopher Hadnagy about social engineering, phishing assessments, physical penetration testing, OSINT, and human-focused security failures.
Topics: social engineering, phishing and security-awareness phishing, voice phishing (vishing), OSINT and reconnaissance, pretexting and impersonation, physical penetration testing, USB-based malware delivery, credential harvesting, reverse shells, Meterpreter and Metasploit, remote access through outbound connections, network firewalls and intrusion detection, human-factor security controls, PCI audits, security awareness training, lateral movement, VPN and FTP use
Links published on the Darknet Diaries episode page. Not LLM output.
Qualified statements from this episode, not graph facts.
social-engineer.org DEVELOPED_BY Christopher Hadnagy
Chris says he set up and runs social-engineer.org as a resource for social engineers.
Explicit Confidence 99% · Christopher Hadnagy EP 69 Details
“I also run social-engineer.org which is a free resource for social engineers”
Social engineering framework DEVELOPED_BY Christopher Hadnagy
Chris says he wrote and formulated the social engineering framework used by the website.
Explicit Confidence 99% · Christopher Hadnagy EP 69 Details
“I started to write a framework on social engineering”
“it took about nine or ten months that formulated the social engineering framework”
Christopher Hadnagy MEMBER_OF Social Engineer LLC
Chris identifies himself as the CEO, or Chief Human Hacker, of Social Engineer LLC.
Explicit Confidence 99% · Christopher Hadnagy EP 69 Details
“I’m the CEO or my fun title is Chief Human Hacker of Social Engineer LLC”
Social Engineer LLC DEVELOPED_BY Christopher Hadnagy
Chris says that his company was started after the framework and related work, and that he later formed his own company focused on social engineering.
Explicit Confidence 94% · Christopher Hadnagy EP 69 Details
“from there my company was started”
“formed my own company focused strictly on social engineering”
Christopher Hadnagy MEMBER_OF OffSec
Chris says he received a job offer from OffSec to work as its operations manager.
Explicit Confidence 98% · Christopher Hadnagy EP 69 Details
“got a job offer from OffSec to work with them as their ops manager”
Christopher Hadnagy MEMBER_OF The Innocent Lives Foundation
Chris says he runs The Innocent Lives Foundation, a nonprofit.
Explicit Confidence 99% · Christopher Hadnagy EP 69 Details
“Then I also run a nonprofit called The Innocent Lives Foundation”
Ryan MEMBER_OF Social Engineer LLC
Chris describes Ryan as his COO and says he had hired him for the penetration-testing work.
Explicit Confidence 97% · Christopher Hadnagy EP 69 Details
“I had just hired Ryan. He’s my COO now”
Social Engineer LLC USES phishing
The company conducts security-awareness and penetration-test phishing campaigns for clients.
Explicit Confidence 98% · Christopher Hadnagy EP 69 Details
“we’re full-board doing SE testing and phishing and all this other work”
“our end goal with that kind of phishing is to teach them how to catch it”
Christopher Hadnagy USES phishing
Chris uses phishing campaigns as part of client security-awareness and penetration testing.
Explicit Confidence 99% · Christopher Hadnagy EP 69 Details
“In this particular test, we started off with a phishing e-mail”
“our goal is to steal credentials, to install an implant”
Christopher Hadnagy USES Vishing
Chris uses voice phishing in a test by impersonating technical support and calling an employee.
Explicit Confidence 99% · Jack Rhysider EP 69 Details
“Chris changed into Paul and acted like he’s from tech support”
“This is Paul from tech support. How you doing?”
Christopher Hadnagy USES OSINT
Chris and Ryan used open-source intelligence to learn that the Jamaican bank was undergoing an audit and to prepare their pretext.
Explicit Confidence 99% · Christopher Hadnagy EP 69 Details
“We had done a lot of OSINT and we found that the bank was undergoing an audit”
Christopher Hadnagy USES Pretexting
Chris and Ryan impersonated PCI auditors as a pretext for entering the bank.
Explicit Confidence 99% · Christopher Hadnagy EP 69 Details
“We were gonna pretend to be PCI auditors to try to get access to the building”
“They plan out their pretext or ruse”
The Innocent Lives Foundation USES OSINT
Jack says people at the foundation use OSINT and hacking skills to help authorities identify child predators or human traffickers.
Explicit Confidence 98% · Jack Rhysider EP 69 Details
“people use OSINT and hacking skills to try to help authorities find and capture child predators or human traffickers”
social engineering village DEVELOPED_BY Christopher Hadnagy
Jack says Chris started the social engineering village at DEF CON.
Explicit Confidence 99% · Jack Rhysider EP 69 Details
“He’s the one who started the social engineering village at Defcon”
social engineering village PART_OF DEF CON
The social engineering village is described as a village at DEF CON.
Explicit Confidence 98% · Jack Rhysider EP 69 Details
“the social engineering village at Defcon”
Metasploit USES reverse shell
Jack says a reverse shell can be set up with Metasploit in the described remote-access scenario.
Explicit Confidence 98% · Jack Rhysider EP 69 Details
“This is easily set up, too, with a tool called Metasploit. This is just a reverse-shell”
Meterpreter USES reverse shell
The supposed PC cleaner was actually a Meterpreter reverse shell that provided remote access to the employee's machine.
Explicit Confidence 99% · Christopher Hadnagy EP 69 Details
“it was a meterpreter reverse-shell that gave us access into their machine”
During the recorded vishing call, Mspkr says they are on the VPN while using their work machine.
Explicit Confidence 98% · Christopher Hadnagy EP 69 Details
“are you on the VPN right now? You’re on your work machine?”
“Yes.”
Works mentioned in the transcript. Distinct from show-note sources.
Model gpt-5.6-luna · prompt 1.5.19 · schema 1.5.19 · 2026-09-13T06:31:19.764268+00:00