If anyone knows the inner workings of internet security systems, it is Kevin Poulsen. This former hacker and cyber crime expert is now a respected journalist working as the senior editor at Wired.com. Audiences will learn from his first-hand experience what cyber criminals will do to steal your privacy and corrupt your online security. Poulsen outlines the various security vulnerabilities that could exist in your company, and what you need to do to improve your IT systems.
Kevin Poulsen is a leading cybersecurity expert, bestselling author, investigative journalist, and former hacker whose extraordinary life story positions him as one of the most credible voices in digital security today. Known for his high-profile hacking cases in the early 1990s—including seizing control of radio station phone lines to win major contests—Kevin became one of America’s most notorious cyber fugitives before being captured in 1991. After serving the maximum sentence for hacking at the time, he redirected his technical talent toward journalism, advocacy, and cybersecurity education.
His transformation led him to write groundbreaking investigative pieces for WIRED, where his reporting exposed critical vulnerabilities in hospitals, nuclear facilities, wireless networks, and government systems. Kevin served as editorial director at Security Focus and played a major role in breaking national cybersecurity stories that shaped public understanding of digital risk. His bestselling books and high-impact keynote presentations continue to give audiences an inside look at how cyber incidents unfold and how organizations can respond effectively.
Kevin Poulsen is a highly-sought keynote speaker and expert covering such topics as cybersecurity and technology. He is a best-selling author, consultant, media pundit, and thought-leader who has spoken at many conferences around the world where he gives leaders the skills they need to deal with fast, big changes in society, the workplace, and education.
Kevin Poulsen is hired to speak at events and conferences where he can give expertise on important global business affairs. He was a former hacker who is most known for breaking into the computers of telephone companies in the early 1990s to win radio station phone-in contests using the information he obtained there. He ensured that he would be the correct number caller to win prizes such as $20,000 and a Porsche 944 S2 Cabriolet by seizing control of the phone lines that connected the various radio stations in the Los Angeles area.
Kevin Poulsen eluded capture by the FBI after they began their search for him. It took him 18 months on the run until he was ultimately apprehended in April 1991, and it was all because of the television show Unsolved Mysteries on NBC. After pleading guilty to the charge of computer fraud, he was given a prison sentence of somewhat more than five years.
At the time, it was the maximum penalty for hacking in the US. After Poulsen got out of jail, he was temporarily prohibited from using computers. After he changed his ways, he became a journalist, but he didn’t have the same curiosity that made him hack as a kid. His first story for a magazine came out in 1998 in WIRED. It was about programmers who used survivalist techniques to prepare for the Y2K bug.
When Poulsen’s court-ordered supervision ended, he became the editorial director of the California-based internet startup SecurityFocus and started writing about security and hacking news. Poulsen often broke big national media articles that were covered by the mainstream press, such as a computer intrusion at a US hospital that, for the first time, compromised patient medical records, hackers “war driving” for open Wi-Fi networks, a computer virus that made the safety system at an Ohio nuclear power plant inoperable. And a southern California hacker’s successful penetration of a Secret Service agent’s PDA and the subsequent theft of sensitive information.
In 2005, Kevin Poulsen left SecurityFocus and is now a senior editor for Wired.com. In 2006, Poulsen made computerized reporting software that looked through MySpace for sexual offenders who had signed up and found hundreds of them. Because of the story, a child molester was caught in the act, leading to big changes in MySpace and federal law. According to what Poulsen found in 2007, the FBI put a type of spyware called a CIPAV on the computers of criminal defendants.
In June 2010, Poulsen and a co-author broke the story that the government had secretly locked up a young Army intelligence analyst in Iraq on suspicion of leaking hundreds of thousands of classified documents to the secret leak website WikiLeaks. Kevin Poulsen is the original editor of the Threat Level blog for Wired. The blog won the 2010 MIN award for best blog and the 2008 Knight-Batten Award for Innovation in Journalism. In 2010, the SANS Institute named Poulsen a “Top Cyber Security Journalist.” This came after he was inducted into the MIN’s Internet Journalism Digital Hall of Fame in 2009.
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A sixty-eight minute Stanford presentation where Kevin Poulsen explores the evolution of hacking, critical vulnerabilities, and the societal impact of digital security failures.
This sixty-eight minute talk from the Stanford Center for Internet and Society features Kevin Poulsen delivering an in-depth, highly contextual examination of hacking culture, cybercrime evolution, and the investigative work that shaped his career as a cybersecurity journalist. Drawing from his own past as a high-profile hacker and later as a leading investigative reporter, Kevin explains how early phone-phreaking techniques foreshadowed today’s wide-ranging digital threats, highlighting the human motivations and technical ingenuity that drive cyber incidents.
He provides a detailed look at several landmark cases he has reported on, including hospital breaches, wireless network vulnerabilities, and government device intrusions. These stories illuminate how attackers exploit oversight, outdated systems, and simple human error. Kevin emphasizes that while technology evolves rapidly, many of the vulnerabilities stem from predictable patterns of behavior—both from attackers and the organizations attempting to defend against them.
The presentation also explores the journalistic responsibilities involved in covering cybersecurity events. Kevin discusses how he verifies information, works with victims and authorities, and evaluates the ethical boundaries of reporting on sensitive digital incidents. He shares his investigative process, offering a behind-the-scenes look at uncovering stories that later became national headlines.
00:00–10:30 Overview of Kevin’s background, early hacking culture, and how phone-phreaking shaped modern cybercrime.
10:30–25:00 Exploration of landmark investigations, including hospital breaches and vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure.
25:00–40:00 Discussion of digital risk, attacker psychology, and how organizations typically fail to anticipate evolving threats.
40:00–55:00 Explanation of Kevin’s investigative methods, journalistic ethics, and reporting on high-impact cybersecurity cases.
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