Cybercrime is estimated to cost Australia more than $40 billion a year, and individual businesses are regularly hit for hundreds of thousands of dollars at a time. The uncomfortable part for any executive team is where the breach usually starts: not with a failure of software, but with a person doing what looked like their job. That is the territory cyber security keynote speaker Adam Spencer has spent more than a decade in. He has hosted AusCERT, Australia's preeminent gathering of local and international cyber professionals, every year since 2010, and he has watched cyber move out of the back rooms to become front of mind for CEOs, boards and employees right across a modern business.
Why cyber scams stopped being a specialist's problem
Adam builds his keynote around three shifts that put every organisation in range. The first is that the barriers to entry have collapsed. He tells the story of Samy Kamkar, famous in cyber circles for accidentally unleashing the fastest-spreading computer virus of all time and crashing MySpace in a matter of hours back in 2005. It is a funny story, and it makes a serious point: doing that kind of damage once required an absolute gun coder.
Anyone who wants to attack a business can now subscribe to a cyber-as-a-service provider and have criminals on that platform do the hacking for them, for fees as low as $100 a month. The second shift is that nation states have entered the fray, with state-sponsored cybercrime now a standard part of modern warfare and certain countries using their own cyber criminals to wage war on Western companies and fund sanction-strapped economies. The third is AI, which has opened an entirely new array of attack vectors against ordinary businesses.
The scam your finance team cannot see coming
The AI point is where audiences sit up. Adam shares an example well known in cyber circles: a finance team member who did everything right, followed the process, sought approval, and still released the payment, because the CEO joined the Zoom call and personally okayed it. The CEO was an AI deepfake.
That is the argument for treating scam prevention as a business risk rather than an IT line item. Controls, approvals and policies all held. A human being was deceived, and the money left anyway. It is why Adam is firm that protecting your business is a people and culture issue as much as a software one, and why this material belongs in front of your whole organisation, not just your technology team.
What a business audience takes away
Adam has distilled decades of experience and observation into a keynote written for a general audience of professionals, not for cyber specialists. Delegates leave with:
- The cutting-edge best, or worst, examples of cybercrime happening right now
- A clear picture of the scope and types of cybercrime in Australia
- Practical tips they can apply immediately to improve their cyber security
- An understanding of why cyber safety is a people and culture issue as much as a technical one
The second half of the session is deliberately constructive. Adam walks the room through basic steps that meaningfully reduce risk, both personally and across a workplace, so people leave with something to act on rather than something to be frightened of.
Why book a speaker like Adam Spencer for scam prevention
Most organisations already run cyber training, and most planners already know how that lands. Adam's advantage is that he is an outstanding communicator who happens to have genuine, long-standing standing in the cyber community. He makes the subject entertaining, which is exactly what gets it remembered: as he puts it, when you see some of the passwords people are still using, you will have a giggle. Audiences agree. TAFE Gippsland rated his Seriously Cyber workshop 4.5 out of 5, with 89% positive ratings, making it the highest-rated session of their conference.
He is also flexible in a way that matters to organisers. At the practical stage of the presentation, Adam will often tag team with an appropriate cyber expert from your organisation or industry, so the session can dive into your specific threats, your previous incidents or your training programmes. Your internal expert gets a stage and an audience that is finally listening. You can see his full range of topics on his ODE Management speaker profile.
Book Adam Spencer for your next event
If you want your people to walk out knowing what cyber scams actually look like and what to change on Monday morning, Adam Spencer will lead that conversation and make it enjoyable. To check Adam's availability for your conference, board day or all-staff event, contact ODE Management today.
Adam Spencer is one of a strong group we manage on this subject, and if your event needs a second voice alongside him, our guide to the best speakers on scams and cyber security in Australia sets out who else works in this space.
