I am an expert on the “people problem” of cyber security.

I have studied the social, cognitive, and behavioral aspects of user deception from a cyber security point of view two decades. Through this time, I have authored close to fifty peer-reviewed articles  on social engineering, online deception, and its  amelioration.

I am an alumnus of the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard University and serve on a distinguished expert panel for the NSA’s Science of Security & Privacy directorate. I  was a tenured faculty at the University at Buffalo and also held a faculty position at Indiana University, Bloomington. I am presently based in Buffalo, New York.

In addition to being presented to the principals of national security and law enforcement agencies around the world, my research has also been featured on CNN, The Washington Post, Wired, USA Today, Politico, and other national and international news outlets.

Below is a list of some of the influential articles I have authored in the media:

• on how ransomware attacks such as the Colonial Pipeline hack could have been stopped [CNN]
• on why weaponizing the Internet is a bad idea [Washington Post]
• on why smartphones are more vulnerable to social attacks [Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report, DBIR, 2019]
• on why so many people fall for fake social media profiles online [LA Times]
• on why spear phishing has become even more dangerous [CNN]
• on how AI will impact democracy [CNN]
• on how AI will replace truckers, retail workers, journalists–eventually, all of us [CNN]
• on how people can stay safe from ransomware [CNN]
• on what President-elect Trump must do to save the Internet [CNN]
• on how cyber breaches occur [CNN]
• on the people problem of cyber security [The Conversation]
• on the threats to our critical infrastructure from cyber attacks [CNN]
• on the threat from data exfiltration through attacks like the Sony Pictures attack [CNN]
• the problems with encryption in the FBI vs. Apple’s iPhone encryption debate  [CNN]
• the rising tide of ransomware attacks [CNN]
• why cyber attacks keep coming and are likely to do so in the near future [CNN]
• how mobile app designs contribute to such attacks [CNN]
• why we need a virtual wall to protect cyber space and how we can build it [CNN]
• how people’s habits are responsible for many cyber attacks [The Conversation]
• how we must change people’s habits and build better cyber hygiene [World Economic Forum]
• on how we can blunt the phisher’s spear [Blackhat’16]
• on how “Spear-Phishing” Roiled the Presidential Campaign [Scientific American]
• on whether the new iPhone is designed for cyber safety [Newsweek]

*A complete list of articles can be found here.