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Tech Fraud Beating Out Social Engineering
The Walking Dude writes "BBC News asked Frank Abagnale if technology is driving the old-school conman into extinction. 'Mr Abagnale really ought to know', as the 2002 movie Catch Me If You Can was based on his life. He served five years of a 12 year prison sentence for check fraud before being offered a job with the FBI. 'There may, after all, be life in the old con yet.'"
"Gone is the sharp-suited, debonair, sliver-tongued fraudster who'd charm his way to a personal fortune. [...] It is the ability to read a person's blind spot, tell them what they expect to hear - and get them to tell you what you need to know."
I disagree. Now they all work in corporate america somewhere in Sales and Marketing department. Few of them even make it up to executive office. Social engineering is the template of sales and marketing.
"Don't let fools fool you. They are the clever ones."
Or you can just call say you are technical support and ask them for their password. Or if you are on site just read the posted notes on the monitor. People are much easier to hack then computers.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Just ask James Randi - he's been keeping track of dubious scams and claims for decades. Just read through a few of his newsletters if you ever want to be amazed at the things people will pretend they can do for money, power, or just plain delusion.
In my oppinion, healthy skepticism is something that should be taught to every school child as part of a minimal education. Knowing how to be properly, rationally skeptical is a very important skill - being either unskeptical, or holding irrational skepticism based on what you want to feel is as much a disability as not being able to read or do math. The scientific method helps if it is introduced comprehensively - but there's a LOT of scientists with doctorates that will be fooled by some of the simplest scams, then convince themselves they couldn't be fooled. Healthy skepticism is both knowing that you can be wrong, but you being wrong doesn't make someone else's extrordinary claims correct, even if it's an innocent mistake for all involved.
Especially disturbing are the constant resurgance of medical scams. People willing to try anything can be put through real hell by people willing to offer them an option that no one else will provide. The family of the dead rarely know to put any blame on a false cure, and the living often mistakenly promote as a miracle whatever was offered, so these scams can erupt almost anywhere. Add in scam artists using religion, blaming the dying for their own failed cure, and the unfounded skepticism of scientific medicine, and you can see how nasty these situations can be.
Ryan Fenton
Now they all work in corporate america somewhere in Sales and Marketing department.
And politicians?
What an asshole you are. This guy gives you real world reasons why requiring multiple ever changing passwords doesn't work, and all you can do is call him names.
His problem isn't that he's using Windows or is too stupid to understand what two-factor authentication means. His problem is that people like you have devised security policies that REQUIRE unmemorizable passwords.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
The "technical" frauds today rely on social engineering.
Right, it's still basically social engineering, but the real key (not mentioned in TFA) is that not only are tricks like phishing easy and practically anonymous, but the pool of victims is so much larger. I'll bet a single mass spam yields hundreds of valid accounts. It's then just a matter of logging in to all of them (hell, you can script that too!) and drain the easiest biggest targets.