James Linton

Social engineer. Speaker. Builder of things that fight back.

I once sent a lookalike email to the White House and got a reply within minutes. Then I did it again to Wall Street CEOs, government officials, and some of the most security-conscious organisations on the planet. Over 150 times, it worked. Not because I was a genius, but because I was exploiting established behaviours that nobody had thought to question.

That realisation changed everything. I went from pranking powerful people to working with the US Secret Service, the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre, and financial institutions worldwide to understand why humans keep falling for the same tricks. Today, I give talks on the psychology behind social engineering and build tools at QuilrAI to help organisations fight back against the threats I once demonstrated.