SELLEST OSAST
In this episode of Hack Dissection, hosts Mike Lisi and Graham O'Donnell sit down with red teamer, educator, and co-author of Redefining Hacking — Wesley Thurner. What starts as a light-hearted conversation about soldering badges at Cactus Con quickly dives deep into red team tactics, AI exploitation, and the culture of CTF (Capture the Flag) competitions.
Wesley shares real-world stories from his time in the military, his role on red teams at Amazon and Intuit, and his work organizing large-scale CTF events through ThreatSim and Red Team Village. From session hijacking and model poisoning to building MVP command-and-control tools with LLMs, this episode is packed with insights from the front lines of ethical hacking.
Whether you're a cybersecurity pro, CTF player, or curious about how AI is reshaping the red team playbook, this conversation offers a rare look behind the curtain — with humor, humility, and a whole lot of practical wisdom.
Topics covered:
- Creative red team engagements involving AI platforms
- How tainted training data can derail machine learning models
- The evolving power (and danger) of prompt engineering
- CTF design philosophy and community-first organizing
- Why the simplest hacks still work in complex systems
📕 Redefining Hacking is available now — and you might even catch Wesley signing copies at DEF CON’s Red Team Village.
