Stephan Humer

I help companies, authorities, and educational institutions to realistically understand and effectively reduce social engineering risks – especially where AI, deepfakes, voice cloning, role routines, trust, and organizational processes create new attack surfaces.

I am a Professor of Digital Innovation and Methodology, as well as founder and head of the Internet Sociology research area. For many years, I have been concerned with how digital technologies change society, organizations, and human behavior – and how this leads to new risks, attack surfaces, and design challenges.

A special focus of my work is social engineering. Since 2013, I have continuously taught this topic in the Security Management program at the Brandenburg University of Applied Sciences. I view social engineering not merely as a "phishing problem," but as an interplay of psychology, organization, communication, technology, security culture, and situational decision-making processes. My approach combines three perspectives: attack, defense, and awareness.

Currently, a significant focus is on the impact of artificial intelligence on social engineering: personalized deception, synthetic communication, deepfakes, voice cloning, automated research, and scalable manipulation. Crucially, this involves not only the technical aspects but, above all, how organizations manage trust, routines, roles, hierarchies, and communication channels.

My goal is to make security tangible, not abstract: scientifically founded, clearly communicated, and practically applicable for executives, security officers, HR, compliance, IT, administration, and operational departments.