The IoCR and A Jolly Consulting hosted and sponsored a “The Seven Deadly Social Engineering Sins” Masterclass at the Institute of Directors on the 29th June 2023 hosted by We Fight Fraud, Tony Sales, Chief Product Officer. The whole point of this event was to bring 30 experts together consisting of regulators, policy makers, parliamentarians and industry thought leaders who are accountable, responsible, and directly manage, oversee, and support risk and resilience across multiple sectors, to explore current trends and future needs in Cyber Crime, Fraud, Risk, and Resilience

Why did the IoCR ask Tony to host this very popular Masterclass topic?

Tony Sales is the Co-Founder of We Fight Fraud and Underworld TV. As a child Tony, was drawn into a world of crime, that would lead into adulthood, with devastating consequences, not only for Tony but for financial institutions around the world. In 2009, after spending half a decade as a fugitive, Tony went to prison. During the sentence, and a visit from his wife and children he had an epiphany. He wanted to make up to his victims by using his knowledge to prevent financial crime. 

Everyone laughed at first but for Tony, it seemed like an obvious fit. Tony is considered one of the world’s leading authorities on Social Engineering, Fraud, and Cyber Crime. Working alongside leaders from law enforcement and academia, he has advised Governments, financial institutions, and some of the world’s biggest brands on their fraud and financial crime strategy. His criminal insight has become invaluable, making him a popular figure who regularly appears on TV and Radio.

This interactive Masterclass gave an insight into the ways criminals will attack your organisation and how you can protect yourself. This Masterclass focused on The Seven Deadly Sins of Social Engineering and took an in-depth look at how criminals target victims, business, or consumers. Tony demonstrated how easy it can be to gain information and steal someone’s life. This affects us all, this is not a problem that can be solved by tech. Tony discussed the need to arm staff with the vital knowledge needed to combat against this growing fraud epidemic, awareness is key.

· Learn the triggers criminals will use in order to get you to do things for them.

· Gain insight into how criminals will use social engineering to attack your business.

· Examine ways of mitigating social engineering attacks.

· Understand how Fraudsters create liminal identities during the process of committing fraud. To partially transform, fraudsters will seek out liminal spaces in person, on the phone, via text message, online, or through a combination of communication methods.

· Understand how Fraudsters do not always seek immediate financial gain; the aim of the contemporary fraudster may be personal data which can then be used to commit further crimes.

· Demonstrate how within liminal space, individuals are transformed into victims of fraud, or potentially into “co-offenders” in order to use the individual to target businesses. Before considering how, when you can identify the liminal space within your organisation, situational crime prevention techniques can be utilised to prevent and disrupt fraudsters harming your business.