Today on the Social-Engineer Podcast: The Security Awareness Series, Chris is joined by Travis Farral. Travis has been working in information security since the 90s at places such as Nokia, ExxonMobil, and XTO Energy. He is currently VP & CISO at Archaea Energy, a bp owned, renewable natural gas company based in Houston, Texas. He has spoken at events around world on topics such as Cyber Threat Intelligence, MITRE ATT&CK, and Incident Response. Notable activities during his career include everything from programming logic controllers, building and leading SOCs, driving forklifts, standing up cybersecurity teams, developing threat intelligence programs, and handling responses to incidents, among many other things over the last few decades. [April 21, 2025]

00:00 - Intro

00:18 - Intro Links:

- Social-Engineer.com - http://www.social-engineer.com/

- Managed Voice Phishing - https://www.social-engineer.com/services/vishing-service/

- Managed Email Phishing - https://www.social-engineer.com/services/se-phishing-service/

- Adversarial Simulations - https://www.social-engineer.com/services/social-engineering-penetration-test/

- Social-Engineer channel on SLACK - https://social-engineering-hq.slack.com/ssb

- CLUTCH - http://www.pro-rock.com/

- innocentlivesfoundation.org - http://www.innocentlivesfoundation.org/

02:08 - Travis Farral Intro

02:58 - A Different Path than Today

05:25 - Healthy Hacking

08:08 - Anything Can Be Weaponized

10:54 - Questionable Behavior

14:31 - Smash That Report Button!!!

18:58 - Improving Our Odds

21:00 - You Have to Keep It Simple

22:25 - Letters to a Young CISO

24:20 - Find Travis Farral online

- LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/travisfarral

25:01 - Mentors

- Shawn Edwards

- Jay Leek

27:02 - Book Recommendations

- R. E. Lee: A Biography - Douglas Southall Freeman

29:34 - Wrap Up & Outro

- www.social-engineer.com

- www.innocentlivesfoundation.org