Layer 8 Podcast

Rosa Rowles has spent more than six years as a social engineer, mainly performing vishing calls. She reports that she has made more than 20,000 calls in her career.
In this episode, she talks about using OSINT to build a pretext and how she chooses favorite pretexts to fit into a target's own bias. She also explains amygdala hijacking and how the right pretext can put someone's mind into a state where they might not make the best choices.
Rosa will be presenting at BSides Tampa on May 16 at 2 pm!

Sagi Brody is the CEO and creator of Sockpuppet.io, a company that makes sockpuppets available for investigations. If you've ever tried to create your own sock accounts, you know how difficult they can sometimes be to create, maintain and even to keep from being deleted.

Sagi explains how this came about, what changes he has seen in the industry and why outsourcing your socks may be a better use of an investigator's time.

Sockpuppet is a Gold Sponsor of the 2026 Layer 8 Conference.

It's pretty easy to guess what she does simply by her name. Mrs. OSINT has an incredible web site dedicated to sharing her learning journey and helping others do the same.
She has a "Start Here" page for people looking to get into OSINT and she also has frequent OSINT challenges for those looking to test their own skills.
Even better, her site is bilingual! She has blog posts in both Spanish and English.

Johnathan Walton got conned out of $100,000 by a very experienced con-woman. When most people get conned or scammed, they're embarrassed and never tell anyone about the experience. Johnathan is different. He tells everyone about it, including law enforcement and multiple court judges. Johnathan got his con artist imprisoned twice. He also assists others who have been conned.
While reviewing his experience and that of others, he noticed recurring themes. He calls these themes "red flags" that many con artists exhibit. In his book "Anatomy of a Con Artist" he details 14 of these red flags and how to spot them. Johnathan has also created the Queen of the Con podcast where he tells his story, as well as during television and public speaking engagements, which can be found on his site at https://johnathanwalton.com/

Want to get into the OSINT field and are unsure where to start? Then this is the episode for you. Dennis Keefe started out in law enforcement, became a web developer and then changed into the OSINT field through his own determination and hard work. Through this episode, Dennis will talk about his path to OSINT and how others can follow in his footsteps.
Dennis' web site where he posts all of his learning and advice can be found at https://denniskeefe.me
This episode is sponsored by Compass Cyber Guard.