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Tech Fraud Beating Out Social Engineering

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the is-this-good-or-bad-i-can't-tell dept.

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.'"

6 of 102 comments (clear)

  1. Torrent for "Catch Me If You Can" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm seeding:
    http://thepiratebay.org/details.php?id=3343505

  2. What? by Poromenos1 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    We all know that wearing jumpsuits, walking in a building (greeting everyone in the way) and getting the computers you want is much easier than trying to hack into the system to get the data. Same for passwords, etc.

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    Send email from the afterlife! Write your e-will at Dead Man's Switch.
    1. Re:What? by fux0rbob · · Score: 5, Funny

      Here's a short conversation I had with a teacher (I work for a school district) I had the other day.

      Me: "Hey, what's your password? No wait, I'll just reset your password and you can change it when the computer restarts."

      Teacher: "NO! I don't want to make a new password. I just want them all to be the same so I don't have to remember two or three. My password is 'steak'."

      Me: *Sigh* "Okay..."

      --
      w00t w00t watch wh0 y0u sh00t!
  3. Re:What about all those at Enron? by EvanED · · Score: 5, Funny

    Wait... politics aside, are you suggesting Dick Cheney could charm his way into anything?

  4. He's misreading things, I believe by Beryllium+Sphere(tm) · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The "technical" frauds today rely on social engineering. Phishing is a perfect example of social engineering, and many botnets get installed by tricking the user rather than by exploiting a technical security vulnerability.

    Nor was Abagnale non-technical. One of his scames was so beautiful that you wish you could admire it, and it was based on manipulating the magnetic ink on a check to put the check-processing infrastructure into an infinite loop. Talk about "float", especially since there was never anything behind the check in the first place. He'd withdraw the money after his victim bank decided "well, hasn't bounced yet, must be good".

  5. Re:Old scams are definitely still alive... by nitehawk214 · · Score: 5, Funny

    One time a girl asked a friend of mine if guys breathed through thier penis while they slept. She was completely serious.

    Perhaps a guy asked her to perform artifical resuscitation on his penis?

    --
    I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust