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The Art of Deception
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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Doesn't the US DCMA NOT allow for tools that bypass security? I wonder how soon it will be before someone tries to use the DCMA against someone who used social engineering.
"If you are on fire you can just stop, drop, and roll. If you fall into Lava you are just dead." - my 5yr old daughter
Dear Amazon.com,
I would like to get a copy of "The Art of Deception", however my grandmother needs surgery and I can't spare any money at the moment. If you'd like to lend me a copy please feel free to email for shipping information.
I, and my grandmother, thank you.
grubby
Trolling is a art,
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
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
I mean look at an article on TechTV as far back as October 2001 that point out such human blunders as "Default installs of operating systems and applications" or "Accounts with no passwords or weak passwords"
Perhaps this quote from a Oct '02 SANS/FBI article point out the worth of this book where they say:
Which is why I think books such as "The Art of Deception" are as needed as biometric identification systems to secure your computer facilities.
healyourchurchwebsite.com - WWJB?
This isn't a review. It's a Table of Contents! Was the book even read?
Is generally the users. Excluding those who run open mail relays, most servers/sysadmins have enough brains not to run the file in their email coming with a message:
.exe/.vbs/etc entirely.
This iz a very fun game
I hope you anjoy it
I made this just for u
How users manage to continually fall for this idiocy is beyond me, but they do. My family is a prime example of this (they refer to me when something dies, but never listen to my "do not open attachments" rant): thus, they now get Mozilla and I'll probably block emails with
Just based on the chapter titles, I think tricks such as the "Let me help you", etc are probably some of the nastiest. Considering the many people who seem to know shiat about progamming and come for help, it wouldn't be hard to slip something cruel into your "sample code."
It's amazing how, after helping somebody directly with something for 30 minutes or so, they're suddenly willing to let me
a) Have root access to their machine ('nix)
b) Control their PC (netmeeting/etc windows)
Luckily I'm a nice person, but not everybody is so helpful as they appear. Social engineering is definately an increasing trend, which is leading to user pananoia. I still don't think that the statement "One of the weakest links to the most secured computer systems are the humans that operate them."
A good sysadmin will block a lot of things that lead to exploitation (unused ports, etc), and perhaps notice odd happenings/traffic. It's the operators of the less-secure systems (clients) that are at risk most often.
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.
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
How to Download YouTube Videos
SmartCard security, ATM cards, and a host of other security solutions (not just along the card theme) already employ the "Something you have, something you know" security scheme in which sensitive things can only be accessed if you have both a device (usually containing some sort of identifier) as well as a password.
Another interesting version of this system involves a keychain or some similar device that contains a computer whose only job is to take some encryption key and scramble it every n time interval. The central sever is doing the same thing. The end result is that the user has to know two passwords - his normal password, plus a key that changes every minute or what have you.
One of the anecdotes in this book exploits a SecurID, using a well-meaning 3rd party. Basically a caller poses as an employee when talking to an operator during a snowstorm. He says he needs to get some work done, but he left his SecurID on his desk. The operator doesn't want to go to the desk to get it, so instead he gives his own SecurID number and PIN to the caller. This was probably one of the most clever manipulations in the book.
Fundamentally, any time you have a human involved in a process, you have a potential security hole.
-Alison
....can scale any fortress wall.
Philip of Macedon said that (I seem to remember) 2300 year ago. To put it short more codes have been cracked and more defenses of any kind have been breached by exploiting simple human weakness than any clever hacking/engineering ever has and ever will. It usually is the easyest way. Take the Enigma code, it was cracked, partly, because of the simplistic and repetitive choices of code key words made by the Wehrmacht communications personnel. It never ceases to amaze me how deeply this fact disappoints the tech freaks of this world. If I had to guess all the nerds at CIA-Langley with all their cool equipment will not contribute even half as much to catching Osam Bin Landen or determining his fate as simple traitors within Al Quaeda will do.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
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.
Check out my eclectic infosec blog at InfoSecPotpou
1) Ideally build security around "what you have/what you know" to the greatest extent possible.
;) If the employee gives out their login info, you send them an email letting them know that they should NEVER give out login information to ANYONE for ANY REASON, and tell them to change their password. Explain that passwords are not accessible to anyone, and that login information is available to anyone who would be investigating security problems. If it happens again, send an email to their manager as well ;-)
2) Train, train, train!
3) Just like you do a network security audit from time to time, do mock attacks! Call up an employee and use something like the following script (modified each time)
"Hi, my name is Joe Angstrom. I work over in IT."
"We are investigating a potential security problem on our network and need to ask you a few questions. Have you noticed anything strange about your computer recently?"
"Thank you, this has been very helpful. There is one more thing. So that we can be sure of this, could you verify your username and password?"
Just make sure that it is approved of before you do it
The point is-- human factors can be mitigated by training, but no one puts that effort into things.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
A HUGE part of my job is preventing social engineering type stuff (or if you want to be specific - evaluating the degree to which a client has successfully implemented good risk management and security management). I interview people all the time, and I assure you that waving $100 is the most sure fire way to not get what you want.
People are more afraid of getting caught, of loosing their job or of getting in trouble than I think you realize. That said, it is amazing the things people do, if they think they're supposed to do them.
I'll routinely call people at a client and just start asking questions to total strangers. I've been in server rooms interviewing people and I'll ask questions like, "How does a visitor get access to this room?" When they answer, I'll ALWAYS follow up with, "Why was I not subjected to that procedure?" I'm legitimately supposed to get access to the information I get, and I sign NDAs and get approval for everything I do. Not once have I ever been challenged to provide that information. (For some reason, if you call the manager of a department and tell him that you'll be talking to his employees and why - they assume you're legitimate.)
Show up, talk the talk and look like you belong there and people will tell you anything. Wave around $100 and people call security.
It's called a KEY, Eisenstein. You can find them at the hardware store.
LOL... if sarcastically calling someone Einstein implies that they are stupid, does sarcastically calling someone Eisenstein imply that they are spouting propaganda?
-a
Perhaps he's trying to turn his life around and teach people lessons that can help thwart people like he used to be. He's out of prison, served his time, give him a chance to turn around and give him the benefit of doubt. He knows what he knows, and the information he can provide can help security.
Of course, don't answer any of his questions about your network, either.
There are plenty of ex-criminals that went on to give plenty of good to society or to hold positions of power. Have you seen 'catch me if you can'? Based on a true story/book, the guy who went on to work for the check fraud division of the FBI. Is that another ex-criminal who should be working at some grocery store bagging groceries instead of lending their talents later to banks to help prevent fraud?
That attitude (once a con, always a con) is part of the problem of recivitism (sp); if convicts could make a decent living like most people, they wouldn't have to go back to crime.
I thought the "Free Kevin" stuff was kind of silly once he was charged with a crime. I don't know much about this particular case, anyway, so.
Dan