SESE: Social Engineering Second Edition
The Second Edition (SE) of Social Engineering looks at how social engineering has changed—and gotten more dangerous—with the rise of tools like large language models (LLMs), artificial intelligence (AI), and deepfakes. What used to be a hands-on process of tricking people with emails or phone calls has evolved into automated, highly convincing attacks. Now, AI can write messages that sound exactly like a real person, carry on believable conversations, and target victims with scary accuracy, all at scale. These tools have made it easier than ever for attackers to fool people quickly and effectively.
Deepfakes and AI-driven profiling have taken things even further. Scammers can now create fake videos and voice clips that look and sound just like someone you know—bosses, coworkers, family members. With so much personal data online, AI can tailor scams specifically to each target’s behavior, interests, and fears. That means the attacks feel more real and are harder to detect. And no one’s safe: younger people get flooded with slick scams and misinformation, working professionals face AI-powered impersonation in their inboxes, and older adults are hit with new tricks that go way beyond what they’ve seen before.
In the presentation, we’ll show a mix of classic and newer, more advanced social engineering attacks—and take a look at what’s coming next. The future of this space is moving fast, and with AI getting smarter and quantum computing on the horizon, we’re already imagining what a Third Edition might look like. One thing’s clear: staying ahead of these threats means rethinking how we protect ourselves and building awareness across all ages and industries.
Righard Zwienenberg – ESET
Zwienenberg began his work with computer viruses in 1988 after encountering his first virus issues at the Technical University of Delft. This experience sparked his interest in virus behavior, leading him to study and present solutions and detection methods ever since. Over nearly four decades, he has worked for various companies, including CSE Ltd., ThunderBYTE, Norman, and ESET. He has also held or continues to hold positions in several industry organizations, such as AMTSO, AVAR, the WildList, IEEE ICSG, and serves on the Advisory Board for Europol’s European Cyber Crime Center (EC3) and Virus Bulletin. He also runs his on computer security consultancy company (RIZSC).
Zwienenberg has been a member of CARO since late 1991. He is a frequent speaker at conferences, including Virus Bulletin, EICAR, AVAR, FIRST, APWG, RSA, InfoSec, SANS, CFET, ISOI, SANS Security Summits, IP Expo, government symposia, SCADA seminars, and other general security events. Beyond his professional work in security, his hobbies include playing drums, performing magic, modeling balloons, restoring ancient computers, and much more.
Eddy Willems – WAVCi
Eddy Willems is a worldwide known cyber security expert from Belgium. He is a board member of 2 security industry organizations, EICAR and LSEC, and is independent Security Evangelist at WAVCi, his own company. In 1989, Eddy was introduced to the early cyber security industry due to an incident with the very first ransomware, the AIDS information trojan. Willems still owns the last remaining physical copy worldwide. Since 1989, he is Belgian’s internationally most quoted cyber security expert. He became a founding member of EICAR in 1991, one of the world’s first security IT organizations. Eddy has been working for nearly 4 decades as cyber security expert for several security companies like G DATA, Kaspersky and Westcon. He is also COO of CSA (Clean Software Alliance) since 2024. In 2013 he published his first book ‘Cyberdanger’ in English, German and Dutch. He is also co-author of the SF cyberthriller ‘The Virus’ (Dutch 2022, English 2025). Eddy is a known inspiring speaker and is giving lectures and presentations (including TEDx) worldwide for a very diverse audience from children to experts.