Marcel van der velde is a renowned social engineer, speaker and trainer. From a young age Marcel got interested in human behavior, especially whilst interacting with others or with information systems. “How could it be that the same question asked by one person got a positive result while another was turned down? What made smart people do stupid things? How do magicians do what they do? What about marketing? And fraud?” It started him on a journey through the science of perception, the art of persuasion and the craft of misdirection. After college Marcel combined IT security with these human factors and helped early pentesters succeed in their missions bypassing all kinds of security measures. He soon became “The guy that put the thumb drive on the parking lot”. A now well known story among security professionals – and one of the few that did not remain a well kept secret.
After fifteen years of collaborating with different teams and conducting tests Marcel decided to turn his attention to full-time research and teaching. Still collecting new insights every day he bundelend some of the “war stories” into valuable lessons. With permission, if he would change names, times and places. These became part of his training program, adding real world examples to the theoretical concepts. Incidentally Marcel still helps training pentesters to better understand the human mind. Not just their victim’s but also their own. Resulting in a more confident approach and better results.