Eric O’Neill
Cybersecurity Expert, Legendary FBI Operative Featured in the Film Breach, Bestselling Author, Technology Futurist and Attorney
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Eric O’Neill’s career began in the FBI’s counterintelligence trenches as an undercover operative. His work brought down Robert Hanssen, the most notorious and damaging spy in United States history. Since then, Eric has spent decades as a national security attorney, corporate investigator, and national cybersecurity strategist. His story became the Hollywood thriller Breach, starring Ryan Phillippe as O’Neill, his own bestselling book, Gray Day, and now, engaging keynotes with jaw-dropping stories and teachable moments. He speaks to thousands each year across the globe, inspiring audiences to protect themselves and giving them actionable tools to do so.
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ERIC O’NEILL—cybersecurity expert, legendary FBI operative, attorney, and founder of The Georgetown Group and Nexasure AI—works with organizations to protect themselves against cybercriminals, whose total thefts constitute the world’s third largest economy.
Eric is an in-demand speaker. With his lively style and stories from the dark web, Eric delivers bespoke keynotes on the rise of sinister cyberattacks, AI-generated threats, and more—including how to keep your money and your reputation safe. Engagements include Acronis, Allstate, AT&T, Bayer, Dell, FedEx, Honeywell, McKinsey, SalesForce, universities, and numerous associations from IIA to YPO.
Eric began his career in the FBI as a graduate of the FBI’s Intelligence Program. He spent the first five years as a field operative in a special surveillance group tasked to surveil and monitor foreign, national, and domestic terrorists and spies.
Eric transitioned from “ghosting” targets from the shadows to direct undercover work with a singular assignment—with little backup or support: Catch his new boss, Robert Hanssen, a 25-year veteran of the FBI, in the act of espionage with the Russians. Hanssen died in a supermax prison last year at the age of 79.
Eric’s edge-of-your seat story is featured in the dramatic thriller, Breach, starring Ryan Philippe and Laura Linney. The film is set inside the FBI, the gatekeeper of the nation’s most sensitive and potentially volatile secrets, and it reveals the story of the greatest security breach in US history. During the Hanssen investigation, Eric worked directly undercover with the spy within the FBI’s Information Assurance Division, created to protect all classified FBI intelligence. Read about it in Eric’s acclaimed book, Gray Day: My Undercover Mission to Expose America’s First Cyber Spy (Crown).
After serving as a national security strategist for several companies, Eric founded The Georgetown Group which has become a premier investigative and security consultancy in Washington, DC. The firm specializes in counterintelligence operations, economic espionage, cybersecurity penetrations, AI-fueled attacks, internal investigations, and security risk assessment.
Eric is also a media commentator. He and his work have been covered by CNN, C-Span, Fox, NPR, Newsweek, TechCrunch, “Fresh Air with Terry Gross,” World News Now, Access Hollywood, and more.
Eric is an honors graduate of Auburn University and George Washington University School of Law. Eric’s next book is The Invisible Threat: Secrets from a Spyhunter in an AI World (HarperCollins 2025).
Dive headfirst into the battleground where foreign spies, deepfakes, and Dark Web criminals conspire to steal from you. Today’s adversaries are relentless and cunning. They’re exploiting every vulnerability, deploying an arsenal of generative AI bots and bandits. As we hurtle towards the future, cybertheft will take over $20 trillion USD from organizations just like yours. Join cybersecurity expert and legendary FBI spy hunter Eric O’Neill in this unexpected presentation. With fresh stories that read like a thriller, Eric teaches you to think like a spy catcher and win.
Objectives:
- Understand why cybercrime is the fastest growing business on earth
- Understand the connection between espionage and dark web cybercrime
- Learn counterintelligence techniques to protect yourself and your company from cybercrime
- Learn to think like a spy hunter
AI-generated voices, texts, and images pose a grave threat to national security—and to you. The latest jaw-dropping stories include kidnapping calls to parents who hear their child’s wrenching cries for help. Elaborate video conferences that dupe teams into funding projects by bad actors. Ransomware from cyber-extortionists who hold your data hostage. In a world where technology drives our lives, you must take new steps to protect yourself and your organization. With his characteristic wit and storytelling, cybersecurity expert and legendary spyhunter Eric O’Neill tells you how to identify AI-fueled attacks…and stop them from taking your money.
Objectives:
- Understand how Generative AI has allowed cybercriminals to scale operations and improve attacks
- Understand how cybercriminals use deepfakes to deceive victims
- Learn how new advances in AI will change security
- Learn what you can do to protect yourself from deepfake cyber attacks
You’d never see James Bond give a game-changing keynote to a leadership team. Or, see Jason Bourne coach corporate audiences on how to turn obstacles into accomplishments. Luckily, we have real-life FBI cybersecurity expert and celebrated spy catcher, Eric O’Neill.
O’Neill weaves his edge-of-your-seat espionage story—featured in the Hollywood hit, Breach and his own bestseller, Gray Day—into highly actionable, irresistibly motivational takeaways to help achieve both personal success and your organization’s goals and mission.
Highlights include:
- “Luck is for lottery winners.” How to not only identify opportunities but create them.
- Achieve success even when you’re not set up for it.
- Manage setbacks and turn them into triumph.
- Why time is the most valuable commodity.
- “Don’t just have a Plan B, have a Plan C.”
O’Neill’s thrilling espionage story of catching the most notorious cyberspy in U.S. history imparts invaluable lessons in a unique, captivating and unforgettable way. Audiences learn how to set goals and achieve them with confidence, determination, and in O’Neill’s case, the courage to triumph like Bond or Bourne. Yes, even when the mission seemed impossible.
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