WINN SCHWARTAU
The Grandfather Of Security Awareness.
Defending Humans
Director of Special Projects, Cognitive Security Institute
DEF CON XXXI Lifetime Achievement Award
International Security Hall of Fame (ISSA)
Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts
The Cognitive Pearl Harbor
In 1991, Winn coined "Electronic Pearl Harbor" while testifying before Congress, now he's warning about the coming Cognitive Pearl Harbor. Their response? “Why would the bad guys ever want to use the Internet?”
Today, that question sounds absurd. But we are making the exact same mistake again.
The next great security battlefield is not our networks, devices, or critical infrastructure. It is the human mind.
Every day, billions of people interact with systems specifically designed to influence attention, shape perception, modify behavior, and reinforce belief. AI, social media, recommendation engines, behavioral algorithms, immersive media, and information overload have created an entirely new attack surface—human cognition itself.
This talk introduces Cognitive Security through the lens cybersecurity professionals already understand. We will explore how attackers exploit the same vulnerabilities that humans evolved for survival over tens of thousands of years and why traditional approaches to security are no longer enough.
Participants will discover:
- Why information overload is becoming a weapon
- How “Too Much Information” degrades decision-making
- Why behavioral manipulation is more scalable than technical exploitation
- How AI accelerates influence operations
- The concept of MetaWAR: the systematic shaping of beliefs and behaviors
- Why Critical Ignoring may become the most important defensive skill of the next decade
- How cybersecurity principles can be adapted to defend human cognition
Drawing on neuroscience, psychology, information warfare, cybersecurity, and emerging cognitive defense
research from around the world, this session connects disciplines that rarely speak the same language but
increasingly face the same threat.
Most security professionals focus on protecting systems. The next challenge is protecting the people who use them.
Attendees will leave with a new framework for understanding influence, manipulation, cognitive resilience, and the
future of security itself.
Cybersecurity gave us firewalls, intrusion detection, and threat intelligence.
What comes next when the target is not the machine—but the mind?
If cyber warfare defined the last thirty years, cognitive warfare may define the next thirty.
The organizations that recognize this first will have a decisive advantage.
"The Civilian Architect of Information Warfare" - Commodore Pat Tyrrell OBE Royal Navy, 1996
The “Civilian Architect of Information Warfare”
“Electronic Pearl Harbor Prophet”
“National Security Imperative for Cognitive Defense: We are defenseless.”
Winn has lived cybersecurity and warping minds since 1983. His creative and original thinking has inspired decades of predictions about the internet, technology, privacy, & security, which have been scarily spot on. He coined the term “Electronic Pearl Harbor” in 1991 and has authored a wide array of publications, including the seminal book, “Information Warfare.”
Now he takes on Cognitive Security in his new book, "The Art & Science of Metawar”. He examines how humans must strengthen our cognitive defenses against AI-driven reality distortion, TMI/disinformation, manipulation, and algorithmic addictions.
He currently spends much of his time as Director of Special Projects for the Cognitive Security Institute. He is especially interested in the intersection of cybersecurity and cognitive security. The vast similarities between silicon and carbon systems offer cognitive defenders an existing framework for strengthening our mental immunity systems against information pathogens at the national, enterprise, and personal levels. The security, privacy, ethics, and global policy implications are staggering.
His last book, “Analogue Network Security” is a time-based approach to justifiable security. “It will twist your mind.” “The Best Cybersecurity Book of All Time,” Cyber Defense Magazine.
• Distinguished Fellow: Ponemon Institute
• Top-20 industry pioneers: SC Magazine.
• Top 25 Most Influential: Security Magazine
• Top 5 Security Thinkers: SC Magazine.
• Power Thinker and one of the 50 most powerful people: Network World.
• 30 Year DefCon Goon (Ret.)
• Top Rated (4.85/5) RSA Speaker
• Top Rated Webinar: 4.56 (ISC2)
• .001% Top Influencer RSAC
• Global Power Speaker
• US Patent: 11,438,369 (Time-Based Security)
Author: “Time-Based Security,” “Pearl Harbor Dot Com” (Die Hard IV), the world's first novel-on-the-net 1993, Project Gutenberg), 3 volumes of “Information Warfare”, “CyberShock”, “Internet and Computer Ethics for Kids” (The Best Security Book Ever Written, Dr. Fred Cohen) and a few more.
Publisher: Weapons of Mass Destruction Terrorism (1995), James K. Campbell ISBN: 0-962-8700-3-X, 1977; The Mind of the Hacker, Dr. Nick Chandler (Maj. Australian military intelligence) 1999
Executive Producer: “Hackers Are People Too”, “VR Babies in the Metaverse”,
Founder: The Security Awareness Company, Hacker Jeopardy, Security Experts, Security Insider Report, InfowarCon.
Former recording engineer and producer.