Inside Man Cast on Security Storytelling and Awareness Training | KB4-CON 2026

Hey everyone, we're back here at KB4 in Orlando. I've got an interesting one here, this next interview. I hope you're going to enjoy it.

You've heard from a few of the KnowBe4 executives that one of the things they've intentionally set out to do is introduce a little entertainment, a little brevity, a little humor, not make training and education so dry. And part of that is it's because the way people consume content today. They don't read seven-page white papers.

They don't even read full articles. They don't like watching 30-minute podcasts or videocasts, if you will. As much as that hurts me- ...

to admit. But they do like being entertained, and they like learning while they're being entertained. And this is something that the KnowBe4 team has really done a great job with.

" Mm-hmm. Right? It's a whole series.

So I'm happy to have the Inside Man, Ben, here today. Along with his cohort, Katherine. And, if you haven't watched any of these Inside Man videos, I hope you will first watch this interview.

But after watching the interview, go check out the videos for yourself. You'll get an idea of what we're talking about. Ben, let's start with you.

Give us an idea of how did you become the Inside Man? I auditioned. I'm just an actor.

I'm not in the tech sector at all. I'm fairly tech-savvy, but I trained at drama school in London and in the UK. And I've been working as an actor and filmmaker and all of those things.

And this came to me through an audition, as any other acting job would. I actually didn't realize it was tech training when I actually took the audition. It was a busy time in my life, and I got the script, and I read it, and I just thought, "That's a good story.

It's an interesting character, real interesting arc, cool world. " And it was only later that I found out that what they'd done is embed the training into the story, which I think is genius. Yeah?

Yeah. Well, I'm going to come back to you. First, we've got to introduce Katherine.

Katherine, tell us a little bit about your story. So, funnily enough, we actually went to the same drama school, but- Really? many years apart.

Yes. So I- I'm not going to... Well, no.

I'm a gentleman. No, yeah. Not me.

All right. Not me. But yeah, so same, I auditioned.

I actually met the director on a night out. In a karaoke, a musical karaoke night. You don't have to admit to this.

You don't have to, it's okay. I made him laugh, and he was like, "I'm casting a comedy. " So I didn't know either it was corporate training.

I thought it was going to be a comedy, and it was. Season one was very funny. Season two was.

And then obviously, now it's a lot more of a drama. Yeah. But yeah.

Again, I didn't really know it was corporate training. " It's like, I don't even understand what that means. But it's so character-driven, story-driven, narrative-driven, you wouldn't necessarily know that it was training.

They embed it so subtly- Yeah. It's amazing ... throughout.

So yeah. Very cool. That's an interesting take.

How many seasons are there of this now? Seven. We've just had- This is season seven ...

yeah, we've just had the premiere- This is season seven ... of season seven, yeah. So over seven seasons, what have you learned?

Go first? Yeah. Apart from all the little details that we pick up through the story, for me, it was my eyes being opened to the scale of how much of us is online and how much access people have to our information, our data.

I had no idea that the individuals, companies, corporations, governments have it. Unless we do something, it is just out there, and that was kind of scary. So it's kind of raised my awareness and put up my defenses a lot more than they were.

Yeah, I think the same. I also think when we started on season one, there was a big thing about USBs, which we just don't even use anymore. And I think that one of the things we've learned is how quickly this technology is developing.

And when we had the deepfakes in season three for the first time, that felt very like, I don't know, you'd have to be a super tech whiz to be able to do deepfakes. And now, anyone. Anyone can do it.

Right. And I think that's the thing is really learnt how fast it is, and then how with your details and everything being out there, if you're not sort of a little bit cautious and a little bit on it, then God knows what anybody could do with your stuff, I think. And particularly at the rate that things are developing.

When we were talking earlier, we got asked a similar question, and I don't know if you can teach people every single threat that they need to be aware of. But what you can do is teach that awareness because things change so rare and because new threats come up all the time. It's great for us because plenty of story.

But in terms of teaching people, just making them aware and conscious of the threat that's out there so they can deal with them as they come. Yeah. I think.

Absolutely. So what's interesting here, though, is though there are 70,000 customers of KnowBe4, they're not all security people. They're not even necessarily all tech whizzes.

Mm-hmm. How has this affected you outside of playing the role? In other words, do you talk to your friends and let them know, "Hey, I just did this latest episode, and this is how insidious this is.

" The main beneficiary of me doing The Inside Man is my mum. Is your mum? Yeah, my mum.

Anytime now, because she's obviously seen all of the seasons. Uh-huh. So she's sort of aware, and she knows that I'm aware.

So anytime she's got any vaguely suspicious email, or I don't know, a big company, Apple or Amazon emails her with something, she'll call me and send me a pic. "Is this right? " And so her awareness now, she's been safe from so many scams- Yeah ...

by me doing this show. I think the same. I think it's the same with Mark, because obviously we take our parents to any premieres that they have.

So they watch all of, even if they're not in a company with KnowBe4, they still get to watch all of them. Very cool. So I think, yeah.

So I think that that's the same as well with my mum, but also just, it definitely makes me more aware. There's certain things that I'm always, because of being on The Inside Man, I'm like, "Oh, if it's an open Wi-Fi without a password. Oh, no, don't, because then they can get into your details," or these various little different things that you do pick up and you just take into your everyday life as well, yeah.

Absolutely. Now, we could say if you want to understand more about The Inside Man, the premise of it, and everything else, you have to go watch it. But let's give them a little bit more of a tease, if you will, because it's a seven seasons old show.

What is the premise? What is The Inside Man? So season one starts as my character, Mark, as a hacker coming in to infiltrate a company.

He gets inside the company, he's part of the mechanism, and I suppose the crux of that season and the jumping-off point for the seasons that come is his decision whether to go through with the hack or not. And the people like Fiona, Kat's character, and all the friends that I make there, how those hacks and the privacy breaches affect the lives of just ordinary people, ordinary workers. And it goes to some crazy places.

It does. So each season, it gets bigger, it gets better. Each heist is bigger.

So, later on, we form a company, with a couple of the other characters, and we're taking on global hacks. Mm. As it started off with one guy coming into the business, and now it's huge events- Yeah ...

that we're trying to... So it's very much, do they call it white hat hacking? Is that it?

Yeah, white hat. Yeah. Yeah, so it's good versus evil, and that sort of thing.

It's all based on- Things that happen ... actual things. Yes.

They have big conversations, the creatives, with the security guys at KnowBe4- Yeah ... and decide what are the threats, what are the upcoming threats- Yeah ... the thing that people, things that people should be aware of.

Any ideas that they have for these heists or these security issues, they run it past those guys to make sure it's all- Real ... it's all, yeah, real. Which is terrifying, because then once we've read the script, we're like, "What?

" Yeah, no, it's real. Yeah. That stuff does happen.

Yeah. For many laypeople out here, not in the security world, the insight they got, that they received on the hit of whether it's real and how real it could get, was the famous show by Rami Malek, was Mr. Robot.

Oh, Mr. Robot. Yeah.

As a security person, I've been in security 30 years. Mm-hmm. As a security person, I loved that show.

Loved it. It got a little weird towards the end. A little bit so.

Yeah. I'll admit. Yeah.

But I loved the show because it really did show you the mind of a hacker. Yeah. And there are white hackers.

There are white hat hackers. There are black hats. There are gray hats.

People who go- Sort of in the middle, right. To be fair, I think that's probably where I swim is. I think that's where you are.

Yeah. Yes. You're a gray hat.

Yeah, I think so. And Charlotte's another character in it- Yeah ... that's sort of with me, that have treaded both lines.

They know that sometimes those lines are blurred in order to do the right thing. Yeah. It's interesting that we have that.

Now, of course, that was on cable TV. Mm-hmm. I think we've wet their whistle enough.

Let's tell them, how can they go watch all seven seasons, or at least six full seasons, but the seventh just premiered. Where can they get that? They have to subscribe.

KnowBe4. KnowBe4. Yeah.

That's it. They have to subscribe for it, and then it'll be on their- Yeah, their mod store ... their mod store, and they get access then.

Yeah. And so it's interesting. Different companies do it in different ways.

So they'll buy a season, and then they'll release an episode to their staff, maybe once a week, maybe once a month. Yeah. Some binge-watch it because they become mega fans, and they have movie nights with it.

But- Yeah ... you have to do it through KnowBe4. You've got to bug your IT security department- Yeah, exactly ...

to sign up to it. Tell them that you need to watch it. I love it.

Go to KnowBe4. So I got to ask you a funny question. Mm-hmm.

People have to photobomb. They can't help themselves. You're at a show like this, a lot of these people have seen this.

Has anyone asked for your autograph? We've literally just been signing like 300 posters. Yeah.

So, yeah. And when we came in on the premiere as well, so they had a red carpet here, and we were out all with our Sharpies, weren't we, signing everything? Yeah.

We get- It's nice because we don't get access to how it's received and the difference that it makes and how much people invest and care about the characters. We do our job, and we focus on that, and then it goes out into the world. So stuff like this, where people come up to us and tell us how much it's helped them in their jobs, and helped them with-Their employees and the difference it makes there.

It's really nice to have those moments. No, totally. " Really?

So well, that's a nice thing . That's a nice thing to hear, isn't it? Yeah.

Look, I got to imagine when you were both in drama school, this was not on your bingo card. No, absolutely not. Yeah.

Also from Season 1. Season 1 was a bit of a trial and error to see- Yeah, it's a test ... if it would take off.

So Season 1, we filmed in two weeks. Yeah. Because it's like the length of a feature film, which is crazy.

And we only had six crew. Yeah. And then we came back.

It did so well. It came back for Season 2, and then there was like 60 crew. We're doing the whoa.

You're up. And each year, it's bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. So I think that we would never have expected it at drama school.

We would never have expected it with Season 1. Yeah. And then more things just keep happening, so who knows what's going to happen next.

Are you afraid of being typecast as the Inside Man? No. No, but because we get to play with a big range of things here.

And also, I don't know. I don't think it's- I've not thought about it. No, I've not thought about it either.

No. Yeah. Oh, I think, well, particularly, I can be very selfish on my character.

My character's really evolved. So like in Season 1, she was office big sister. Uh-huh.

Very cute. And now she's corporate highflyer. Yeah.

Yeah. Getting recruited by MI5, so I think I've had quite a good arc, so hopefully not. But no, it's not something I've really thought about.

Very cool. Not thought about it. No.

I don't mind. All right. What about Season 8?

Any word? Where's James? Yeah .

Don't say anything that you're not allowed to say. No, but, well, I can tell you what they did announce in the Q&A, and what they announced at the premiere is what they're going to do is, they're going to build out. So obviously there's seasons that would build up and create more new stories.

This is building out. So- Filling the arcs in a little bit. Yeah.

So all of the stories that we already have is yeah, what are those gaps that we haven't told yet? So they're doing a series of short films, and shorter episodes that will unpack some of the stuff that's already happened in the other seasons that are out there. I love it.

Guys, I want to thank you for coming and bringing this to our audience. You're very welcome. com.

Ben- Thank you so much ... Kathryn. Thank you.

Keep up the great work. Thank you. Thanks.

This is how people learn today, right? Yeah. Absolutely.

And if you're learning from it, it's a good thing. And it makes it fun. So learning is fun, isn't it?

Absolutely. Learning is fun. We'll leave it with that.

Hey, you're watching Techstrong TV. We still got more today, so check it out. We'll be right back.