.png)
Gen Z is the most exposed generation in history. We grew up posting everything — our faces, our voices, our locations, our friends, our jobs. We're glued to our phones, doom-scrolling through Reels and TikToks, leaving a trail of data behind us.
Now that data is a weapon.
Attackers don't need to guess anymore. They can scrape your TikTok to clone your voice. Pull your Instagram to map your social circle. Find your LinkedIn to know exactly who your manager is and how they talk.
This isn't phishing. This is cognitive warfare — and most companies aren't ready for it.
Gen Z thinks we're too smart to get scammed. We grew up online. We've seen every Nigerian prince email, every fake IRS call, every "you've won a free iPhone" popup. We know what a scam looks like.
But that confidence is the problem.
The attacks don't look like scams anymore. When someone calls your help desk using a cloned voice of your coworker, it doesn't feel like fraud. When you get a text from your "manager" referencing a real project you're working on, you don't think twice. When a deepfake of your CEO asks for a wire transfer on a Zoom call, it looks real — because it's built from real data.
The Dunning-Kruger effect is real. The generation that thinks it's immune is actually the easiest to hit.
Vishing. Smishing. Deepfakes. These aren't future threats. They're happening now, every day, to people who thought they'd never fall for it.
Then it scales.
In 2023, an attacker called MGM's help desk, impersonated an employee, and reset their credentials. Ten minutes later, the entire operation was down. Casinos dark. Hotels locked out. $100 million in losses — from one phone call.
Caesars paid $15 million in ransom after the same type of attack. Coinbase got hit through their help desk. No malware. No phishing email. Just social engineering, powered by data that was already out there.
This is cognitive warfare. And most companies are still training for email.
I always thought I'd solve this problem from the inside.
I built the red team at BlackRock. I did offensive cyber operations at MITRE. I spent years attacking companies the way real adversaries would — and watching employees fail the same tests over and over again.
The training wasn't preparing them. It was checking a box. Employees sat through hours of compliance videos, then fell for the same attacks we'd been running for years. The gap between how attackers actually operate and how companies train their people was massive.
I thought government would fix it. I thought financial services would fix it. But the incentives were wrong. Compliance mattered more than security. Pass the audit, move on.
So we built Beacon.
Beacon starts by building an exposure map — professional profiles, social media posts, breached credentials, public company data. The same reconnaissance real attackers do before they strike.
Then we use it.
We simulate personalized attacks across email, voice, SMS, and help desks. Not generic templates. Attacks built from your employees' actual digital footprints — the same way a real adversary would target them.
Welcome to the new era of social engineering.