The Art of Deception

MasterSLATE writes "One of the weakest links to the most secured computer systems are the humans that operate them. No matter how well secured a computer, network or information may be, there are always people that will have contact with them from the inside. This is what the social engineer exploits in order to gain access. In The Art of Deception, Kevin Mitnick writes about the human element and how it can be manipulated and exploited to gain access to computer systems or 'secure' information." Read on for the rest of Masterslate's review. The Art of Deception author Kevin Mitnick (& William L. Simon) pages 346 publisher Wiley Publishing, Inc. rating 9 reviewer MasterSLATE ISBN 0471237124 summary Geared toward the company security guy, but a good read for anyone interested in security, especially social engineering What's to Like?

The Art of Deception is extremely easy to understand and actually fun to read.

The first part of the book, Behind the Scenes contains the first chapter, Security's Weakest Link, which describes through many examples how and why the social engineer is able to so easily manipulate people to get what he wants.

Part 2, The Art of the Attacker, contains chapters 2-9, which describe various ways a social engineer can manipulate people over the phone. Each chapter tells of a different method that could be used to gain information. Each chapter also contains at least one example.

Part 3, Intruder Alert, contains chapters 10-14, which tell about different ways a social engineer can get inside a company, whether physically or through an internal contact. Each chapter contains at least one example.

Part 4, Raising the Bar, contains chapters 15 and 16, which explain how a company should create their security policies and training to prevent the social engineer from gaining access to sensitive information. These chapters are definitely more geared toward the executive, security analyst, or other specialist, as they contain specifics on what new policies should be implemented and why.

The last section in the book, Security at a Glance, contains some charts and information which should be read over by a more general audience, such as employees and other people that may be contacted by a social engineer.

And one sidenote: there's a nice little foreword by Woz (Steve Wozniak).

The Summary Although this book is geared toward the company security expert, this book also has appeal to anyone with an interest in social engineering. I found it to be a quick and fun read. As a social engineer, this book taught me new tactics to try as well as ways that my targets might be prevented from giving me information I seek.

Table of Contents

Foreword
Preface
Introduction

Part 1 Behind the Scenes
* Chapter 1 Security's Weakest Link
Part 2 The Art of the Attacker
* Chapter 2 When Innocuous Information Isn't
* Chapter 3 The Direct Attack: Just Asking for It
* Chapter 4 Building Trust
* Chapter 5 "Let Me Help You"
* Chapter 6 "Can You Help Me?"
* Chapter 7 Phony Sites and Dangerous Attachments
* Chapter 8 Using Sympathy, Guilt and Intimidation
* Chapter 9 The Reverse Sting
Part 3 Intruder Alert
* Chapter 10 Entering the Premises
* Chapter 11 Combining Technology and Social Engineering
* Chapter 12 Attacks on the Entry-Level Employee
* Chapter 13 Clever Cons
* Chapter 14 Industrial Espionage
Part 4 Raising the Bar
* Chapter 15 Information Security Awareness and Training
* Chapter 16 Recommended Corporate Information Security Policies

Security at a Glance
Sources
Acknowledgments
Index

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Comments

The lost first chapter to the book....

[Ami Ganguli]

The Register ran a review, along with the original first chapter of the book (which was cut by the editors).

The first chapter is (or rather, was) a short bio and history of the Mitnik case. Interesting to read Kevin's side in his own words.

The lost chapter

Table of Contents?

[mmThe1]

May seem like a nitpick, but isn't this "review" more of a "Table of Contents with brief description of chapters"?

Slashdot Book Review Guidelines

A more informative review

[phr2]

Here's a review by Rob Slade that's quite a bit more detailed than MasterSLATE's review.

Before seeing Slade's review, I read most of The Art of Deception at the bookstore and decided not to buy it. I agree with most of what Slade says. The book is mostly aimed at PHB types and doesn't say all that much useful to techies. However, as a security implementer, I don't think trying to install paranoia in PHB's is such a bad thing. They are often completely unrealistic about vulnerabilities, so it's good to open their eyes a little.

Excellent Book and Some Resources

[webword]

I'm reading this book now. Surprisingly, it isn't so much about technology and security. Instead, it is more about understanding humans. Despite the sterotype that geeks have for being socially incompetent, to be a truly good hacker using social engineering, you have to be good socially. Maybe not great, but pretty good. And, you need to know the right language and the right people to communicate with. Mitnik does a great job with this stuff and I am really enjoying the book. (However, I'm not so sure his tactics will work as well as they did a few years ago.)

Here are some pretty good resources for learning more about social engineering:

Social Engineering: What is it, why is so little said about it and what can be done?

Social Engineering Fundamentals, Part I: Hacker Tactics

Social Engineering: The Human Side Of Hacking

Re:Protecting people via DCMA

[PhilHibbs]

"a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title" is the exact wording.

A weak book on security

[prankster]

I also read The Art of Deception

I do not really know how to describe this book with its strange mixture of fact and fiction. 2/3 of the book are stories of social engineering in all forms and shapes. That gets a bit long and tedious long before you have finished the 245 pages of it.

The rest of the book consists of recommendations for raising the bar. A long list of things to do if you want to tighten security at your company.

So does social engineering really work? Yes, my guess is that most people will not know what hit them even if you ask them afterwards.

At the very least you should be convinced by Mitnick talking Steve Wozniak into writing the foreword (Kevin Mitnick is one of the finest people I know) and Wiley Publishing, Inc. into publishing what I consider a weak book on security. There are of course a few good points but they are too few and too far apart.

The leading Danish financial newspaper, Børsen, wrote that it should be required reading for people with an IT security responsibility. I can only say that if you have an IT security responsibility and still need to read this book you are most likely in deep trouble.

You should only bother reading The Art of Deception if you know next to nothing about the human aspect of security and then only if you really think you are safe.

I read it...

[Hanashi]

This article wasn't much of a review, so I thought I'd chime in. I read this book recently, and here are some of my thoughts.

First, what's in this book? The bulk of the book is given over to scenarios of different types of social engineering attacks. This includes things like acting helpless, offering help and guilting your victim into "owing you something", and pushing certain psychological buttons designed to make the victim feel whatever emotions you want. There's also some stuff about how to create a good security policy for your organization, but you can skip that. There are much better references for this sort of thing.

What did I like? The scenarios sure are entertaining! The book covers a wide variety of different situations and goals, from tricking someone into telling you their password to gaining physical access to "secure" facilities. The authors tell the story of each attack both from the victim's point of view and from the attackers, then provide an analysis of why it worked and how it could have been prevented. Very valuable!

What did I dislike? There's a substantial amount of repetition in the scenarios, but some may view that as useful reinforcment, so it's not necessarily a bad thing. As I said, I think the security policy section isn't very good, and it could easily have been left out.

My overall impression is good, and I highly recommend this to anyone responsible for physical or information security in their organization.

Ahem

[tiltowait]

Affiliate tags aside, according to OCLC's WorldCat about 450 libraries have this book available for lending free of charge. If you library doesn't, you can still usually order it through an interlibrary loan service.