According to Infosecurity Magazine, Rachel Tobac is an ethical hacker and the CEO of SocialProof Security, a firm dedicated to defending against social engineering attacks. She famously won DEFCON’s Social Engineering ‘Capture the Flag’ contest and was one of the first experts to correctly dissect the massive 2020 Twitter hack as it happened. Beyond her client work, she serves as the Chair of the Board for the nonprofit Women in Security and Privacy. Her insights and real-life hacking stories have been featured everywhere from NPR and The New York Times to Last Week Tonight with John Oliver and NBC Nightly News.
The Real Weak Link
Here’s the thing that Tobac’s work drives home: the most critical vulnerability in any system isn’t a software bug. It’s the person using it. All the firewalls and encryption in the world can’t stop someone from being tricked into handing over a password or clicking a malicious link. That’s social engineering. And it’s terrifyingly effective because it exploits human nature—our desire to be helpful, our fear of getting in trouble, our trust in authority. So why do we still spend millions on tech solutions while barely training our teams on this?
Beyond the Headlines
When you hear about a big hack like the Twitter incident, it’s easy to imagine shadowy coders breaking through digital walls. But Tobac’s real-time analysis showed it was likely a simple phone call. A convincing impersonation of an IT staffer to a human employee. That’s it. That’s the scale of the attack that compromised dozens of high-profile accounts. Her work flips the script. It’s not about finding the most complex technical flaw; it’s about finding the path of least resistance through human psychology. For businesses, this means your security audit is incomplete if it doesn’t include testing your people.
A Shift in Defense
So what’s the impact? For users, it’s a wake-up call to be skeptical. Verify that text, double-check that email sender, and don’t rush. For enterprises, Tobac’s approach forces a fundamental shift. Security awareness can’t be a boring annual compliance video. It needs to be engaging, practical, and tested with simulated phishing and vishing campaigns. Look, the technical infrastructure still matters—you need secure industrial panel PCs and hardened networks, especially in operational environments. But that’s just the foundation. The real security layer is building a culture where everyone is a vigilant, educated gatekeeper. Basically, we need to start defending minds, not just machines.
