Eric O'Neill

Boards understand cybersecurity as a compliance line item. They do not understand it as an active counterintelligence problem, where adversaries study the organisation, build trust with employees, and move on patient timelines. The same psychological playbook now drives AI-generated deepfakes, voice cloning and synthetic identity attacks against finance teams, executives and supply chains.

Eric O’Neill is the former FBI operative who caught Robert Hanssen, and now advises organisations on how to defend against the same human and AI-enabled deception tactics nation-state actors use.

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Why organisations work with Eric O’Neill

  • He has run the highest-stakes counterintelligence operation in modern US history. When he describes how a long-running insider threat actually unfolds, he is describing his own case file, not a model.
  • His framing reorients cyber defence around the human, not the firewall. Hanssen was an FBI veteran with full system access. Most of today’s breaches still begin with someone trusted being manipulated.
  • He translates espionage tradecraft into language CFOs, general counsel and HR leaders can act on. Deepfake CEO fraud, voice cloning, social engineering and ransomware are explained as familiar intelligence techniques running on new infrastructure.
  • He brings two published books from major trade houses, Gray Day (Crown, 2019) and Spies, Lies, and Cybercrime (HarperCollins, 2025), giving audiences a substantive body of work to follow up with.
  • He is one of the few cybersecurity speakers buyers can hand to a non-technical executive audience without losing them. The Hanssen narrative carries the room; the security argument arrives inside it.

Biography highlights

  • Conducted the FBI undercover investigation that led to the arrest of Robert Hanssen, a 25-year FBI veteran convicted on 15 counts of espionage.
  • Author of Gray Day (Crown, 2019) and Spies, Lies, and Cybercrime (HarperCollins, 2025).
  • Founder of The Georgetown Group, a Washington DC investigative and security consultancy, and Nexasure AI.
  • Portrayed by Ryan Phillippe in the 2007 Universal Pictures film Breach.
  • Honours graduate of Auburn University and the George Washington University Law School; admitted to the Maryland and DC bars.
  • Featured across NPR Fresh Air with Terry Gross, CNN, C-SPAN, Fox, Newsweek and TechCrunch.

Biography

Robert Hanssen had been spying for Moscow for almost two decades when a 26-year-old FBI operative was placed in the office next to him. Hanssen was a 25-year bureau veteran with full clearance, deep technical fluency and a track record of compromising US assets. The operation that exposed him hinged on a single quiet act, the download of an encrypted Palm Pilot, returned to the desk before it was missed. The arrest came on 18 February 2001.

That case sits at the centre of Eric O’Neill’s work, but it is not the product. The product is what the case taught him about how serious adversaries actually operate. They study the organisation. They build trust. They exploit the people closest to the asset, not the perimeter. The same logic now drives AI-generated deepfakes, voice-cloned executive fraud, synthetic identity attacks and supply chain compromise.

He has built a second career around that translation. The Georgetown Group, his Washington DC consultancy, handles counterintelligence, economic espionage, internal investigations and security risk for corporate clients. Nexasure AI focuses on AI-era threat advisory. Gray Day (Crown, 2019) is the inside account of the Hanssen case. Spies, Lies, and Cybercrime (HarperCollins, 2025) is the operating manual that followed it.

He is also a lawyer, admitted to the Maryland and DC bars after law school at George Washington University. That matters in the room. He briefs general counsel, CISOs and boards on cyber and insider risk in language that lands legally as well as operationally, and he does it with the rare authority of someone who has actually run the case.

Key speaking topics

  • Cybersecurity and the human attack surface
  • AI-enabled fraud, deepfakes and synthetic identity
  • Insider threat and counterintelligence for corporates
  • Economic espionage and intellectual property protection
  • Ransomware and extortion economics
  • National security lessons for private sector boards
  • Social engineering in the age of generative AI

Ideal for

  • Boards, audit committees and CEOs reframing cyber as enterprise risk rather than IT spend
  • CISOs, CIOs and CSOs briefing non-technical executives on insider threat and AI-era attack methods
  • General counsel and CFOs exposed to deepfake fraud, business email compromise and wire authorisation risk
  • Industry conferences in financial services, defence, technology, healthcare and critical infrastructure

Audience outcomes

  • A working mental model of how adversaries plan and execute insider compromise, drawn from a real FBI case
  • A practical view of where AI is changing the cost and speed of social engineering, deepfake and identity attacks
  • Specific behavioural and procedural defences against voice cloning, deepfake video and CEO fraud
  • A board-level vocabulary for cyber and counterintelligence risk that does not depend on technical jargon

Talks

Gray Day: How I Caught the Most Damaging Spy in American History

The inside account of the Hanssen investigation, used as a frame for how modern insider and cyber attacks unfold.

Key takeaways:

  • How nation-state and criminal actors profile targets inside organisations
  • Why technical controls fail when trust is the attack vector
  • What a counterintelligence mindset looks like inside a corporate security function

Secrets from a Legendary Spyhunter: Decoding AI Deepfakes, Extortion and More

An operator’s view of the AI-enabled threat landscape facing executives, finance teams and HR leaders.

Key takeaways:

  • How voice cloning, deepfake video and synthetic identity are being used in live attacks
  • Where existing fraud controls break down against AI-generated content
  • Practical verification and escalation behaviours for executives and assistants

Cyber Security in the Age of Espionage

A board-level briefing on cyber risk as a counterintelligence problem, not a compliance one.

Key takeaways:

  • Why insider threat remains the highest-impact vector
  • How economic espionage targets IP, M&A and supply chain
  • What boards should be asking CISOs that they currently are not

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Testimonials

Eric was a wonderful addition to our Company-wide Conference and, for many of our attendees, his presentation was the highlight. He was engaging, animated, charming and able to extract important business lessons from his experience with the FBI. I appreciated his candor, the tailoring of his message to our theme and the time he took to spend with our team. I'd recommend him as a speaker at any corporate event.
John
President & CEO, Johnny Rockets
Eric O’Neill is an enthralling speaker who brings to life the realities of espionage. He painted a picture that was both enticing and terrifying.
CSO
An amazing speaker! He was warm, personable, knowledgeable, and generous with details about this exciting and heroic story. He was a huge hit with our attendees!
Association of College and University Auditors
Eric O’Neill’s presentation on “An Insider's Look into the Robert Hanssen Investigation: How the FBI Caught the Worst Spy in American History” is a breathtaking insight into one of the worst spies in United States history. Eric presented on never before heard facts that wowed the audience and left everyone wanting more. His professional approach and mild-mannered attitude were spot on for an engaging delivery. Everyone was so focused on Eric for the full hour that you could have heard a pin drop in a room of 1,000+ attendees. Eric is truly a once in a lifetime speaker that everyone should see and hear in person!
NCMS Seminar Committee
Eric O’Neill spoke at our Qualcomm conference and our group was very pleased. He hit home with the importance of being diligent to protect personal and company data – with many examples of ways we are all being targeted. The threat is REAL, and people need to take it seriously.
Rachel
Qualcomm
Eric was the perfect guest speaker for our event. With an audience of IT Security folks, he not only captivated the room with his thrilling espionage story, but also incorporated our latest cyber-security report and other cyber-security themes into his talk. Eric has a long list of interesting topics he can speak on, and we hope that we can bring him back to speak again in the future.
Carrie
Manager, Events & Partner Relations, CloudLock
Eric was the perfect guest speaker for our event. With an audience of IT Security folks, he not only captivated the room with his thrilling espionage story, but also incorporated our latest cybersecurity report and other cybersecurity themes into his talk. Eric has a long of interesting topics he can speak on, and we hope that we can bring him back to speak again in the future.
Carrie Page
Manager, Events & Partner Relations, CloudLock
Eric was a fantastic speaker, and exactly what we wanted for our audience of tech executives. His combination of a great story plus the cybersecurity expertise made his keynote compelling while also providing practical advice. We had a line out the door for his post-keynote book signing. Eric was extremely accommodating in helping us to promote his keynote in advance and signing extra books for our board members post-event.
Lien-Anh Van Wagener
Sr. Director, Events & Education, CompTIA
Eric O'Neill is an engaging speaker, whose message of courage and determination resonates especially well with college students. Drawing on his own life experience as a spy hunter, O'Neill speaks with authenticity and candor about his work as an FBI Investigator. Speaking at Auburn University, for the Graduate School's New Horizon Lecture, O'Neill downplayed the Hollywood image of spies to emphasize the importance of hard work, perseverance, and the courage to act in ways that are true to your own beliefs. In the wake of the Edward Snowden revelations, O'Neill message is especially relevant. I highly recommend him as a speaker for college audiences or for anyone interested in cyber security.
George Crandell
Associate Dean, Auburn University
Eric is simply brilliant. His energy, expertise and insight into the ever-changing cybersecurity industry is unparalleled. I had worked with Eric in the past for a live event, but was equally impressed with his ability to carry a virtual keynote presentation and deliver a high-quality, compelling experience for the remote audience. Eric goes out of this way to ensure his talk is aligned with your event goals, theme, and audience makeup. He asked the right questions in our pre-event brief, and customized his content to meet our needs. The feedback we received from our attendees was outstanding and we look forward to working with Eric again in the future.
Justin McCoubry
Director of Marketing for North America, Egress
Eric was a wonderful addition to our Company-wide Conference and, for many of our attendees, his presentation was the highlight. He was engaging, animated, charming and able to extract important and relevant business lessons from his experience with the FBI. I appreciated his candor, the tailoring of his message to our theme and the time he took to spend with our team. I'd recommend him as a speaker at any corporate event.
John Fuller
President & CEO, Johnny Rockets