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First-Person Account of a Social Engineering Attack
darkreadingman writes, "A penetration tester tells how he broke into a bank's network dressed as a copier repairman. Some good lessons here — many companies spend millions on network security, but don't teach their employees how to challenge a stranger in the building. Social engineering at the company site can be one of the most difficult attacks to defend against." From the article: "Before departing scenes like these, we try to document the effort and provide proof of our success. I usually leave something behind and then contact the person who hired me and direct them to the mark. In this case I wrote his password on a ream of paper and tucked it under the machine."
You know, I was wondering why that guy needed my password to fix the copier.
Some attitudes replaced or by cgi optimizes
I think it goes without saying that anyone getting into your office claiming to be someone they aren't is a threat. Hacker or otherwise, they can easily get information they want with a "hall pass" for the whole building.
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In this case I wrote his password on a ream of paper and tucked it under the machine. :)
That seems like an awful lot of effort, when you could just write it on one sheet.
$2000.00 cash and you can pay off the cleaning service people to let you in dressed as them. EASILY, sometime for far less. those people are so underpaid yet have access to the most secure parts of the company you can get in, get past the security guards without a second look and you are allowed to root around in secure areas on camera as you are supposed to be under each desk cleaning out trash.
Install a few key loggers, come back in a week and harvest them. No problem and easily undetected at any corporation. They probably will never suspect you even after they get massive hacks later because security typically is also underpaid and way under trained.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
thanks! I looked under my keyboard and found the jumpdrive I had been trying to find for weeks!
Lying is a specific tool, not a blanket term for the various types of deception which may be employed in social engineering. Perhaps you think it sounds self-important, but that assumes that the only people who use the term are engaged in the practice. I think the term sounds reasonably descriptive and emotionally neutral, unlike "scamming" for example, and allows for the possibility that some people may engage in social engineering for non-harmful purposes.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
While this is not technically "news", it serves as a good reminder and notice of warning. As mentioned in the article...
Hearing stories like this raises awareness for all of us, and reminds us of different ways that we can be exploited so that we can avoid them. Just like learning from history, it is always better to learn from someone else's mistake instead of learning it the hard way.
I believe in de-evolution. God made the world perfect, man fell, and its been going downhill ever since!
I recently hired a car from a well known car company (I won't name them as in general I find them to be a very good company)
I normally hire from one particular branch and drop it back off there and as a regular customer known each of the staff by name, however on this occasion I was dropping the car back at the airport.
After parking up a guy came from a car in another bay (for the same car company) and asked if was dropping off one of their cars which I confirmed and told him it had come from my usual branch and not the airport. He asked to see the paperwork and did a check over the car - not a problem. After he gave me the paperwork back he asked for the keys. Since I didn't know him and he wasn't even wearing a uniform I asked to see ID, he couldn't provide it and all he did have was a stack of paperwork with the company letterhead in a file.
Well I'm afraid that isn't really good enoguh proof of ID - I told him I'd drop the key off at their desk (which is opposite my check in desk) since I had no way to know if he was an employee or not.
After dropping the key off at the office of the car company in the airport it turns out he was a legitimate employee but the question of ID has never come up.
I saw some of the otehr cars there - they are always brand new and while I usually take something like an astra or a vectra this being the airport car park had several jags and a merc or two. Its seems it would be a VERY easy way to obtain a few cars... park up, inspect the car, ask for the key.
Even if you get pulled over by the police you would just have to say its a hire car - a check of the registration would confirm that - these companies really should be a little more careful of their security!!
$_="Slashdotter";$syn="OTT";s;..;;;sub _{print shift||$_};s!ash!Perl !;s=$syn=ack=i;tr+LLEd+BLAH+;_"Just Another ";_
"Gentlemen, your communication lines are vulnerable, your fire exits need to be monitored, your rent-a-cops are a tad undertrained. Outside of that everything seems to be just fine. You'll be getting our full report and analysis in a few days but first, who's got my check?"
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Whenever I hear the usual rant about users having their password as a sticky note on their monitors, my instant reaction is "It's your fault, you goob!" I've worked lots of places where they've implemented a new "password security process" which requires you to switch your password regularly and which prevent you from using the same password for some ridiculous period of time and which disallow dictionary-based words/phrases.
:-)
Hello, McFly? Which is better: my having an easily-remembered but difficult-to-guess password that I never write down, or you forcing me to change my password frequently and then write it down because your policy makes me choose something obscure? My original password was fairly strong (a combination of upper and lowercase letters and numbers that are meaningful only to me) but when I'm forced to change to something new, it will be written down somewhere until it's committed to memory. Can you say "counterproductive"? How about "unintended consequences"?
Of course, I understand that a lot of these policies are based on out-dated recommendations and come down from on high. However, it would be nice if those making these "rules" to realize that most users have other things to do besides remembering a constantly changing set of passwords. Oh, BTW -- my new password is "theCIOsucks!"
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Friend of a friend got a job doing security audits for a major energy company here in houston.
1) He broke into a top nuclear facility by holding a box and asking the person ahead of him to hold the door.
2) He set off the "man trap" and found he could easily climb out of it.
3) He found out the heavily secure facility had secure areas protected by sheetrock walls in some areas.
He finally embarrassed so many people that they posted a picture of his face to all employees with a warning to be careful. That destroyed his effectiveness. Some solution.
But that's the real world for you.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
I've been thinking about the article. It seems to me that such an abject failure to prevent a security breach could be more demoralizing than instructive. In most companies, the employees are not going to be security-savy, and they will not question a potential intruder. When the penetration test is successful everyone just feels stupid and slightly used. That's my guess at how the bank employees would react when the boss let them know that they got totally hacked.
Instead, for those bosses with less scruples, you'd probably get more bang for your buck by faking the penetration test. Hire some dude to try to get in, and arrange some employee to "catch" him. Then you get to circulate the news that you were successful because an employee did the right thing. I think the information would be just as instructive (always ask for outside confirmation of vendor reps), but instead of being depressing (you guys all failed to do the right thing) it could be empowering (it's easy to do the right thing, and one of you managed to do it).
Is penetration testing even worth the money for a system as obviously insecure as this one? If, as the article claims, these attempts succeed 9 times out of 10, then you don't need to pay for the penetration test to know your company will fail. Does a bank manager really need to pay someone to tell them the obvious? They should take some proactive steps towards security-enhancements first, and save the penetration testing for when they actually think they have a somewhat hardened system (social and technical) to penetrate.
-stormin
The Southern Baptist Convention has creationism. On Slashdot, we have porn.
Teaching employees to police each other at the door does NOT help security. It does not work. All the awareness training in the world is wasted money because "politeness" is built in to our culture.
If I'm walking out the door, and someone coming in catches the door after I walk out, am I going to stop, turn around, go back in the building, stop the person on the way to the stairs, force him to follow me back to the badge reader, and wait to make sure his badge is accepted by the reader? No.
It will never happen.
Even if your security awareness training is so successful that 50% of your employees do this, an intruder only has to try twice to get in. You gain nothing.
Employee-enforced physical security is a farce. You will ONLY have real physical security if you have a dedicated security guard who checks every badge and photo-ID for every person entering the building.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Yes it is lying, however its also quite a bit more than that.
Its a con. Plain and simple. Since you generally know the conversation and physical scenario that is going to take place, all that is needed is some improv. Thats why I state its a bit more than lying. You're feeding off of the targets lack of awareness, willfullness to give information, and general good nature, as 'everything seems to be in order' with your physical presence.
As far as distinction in vocabulary and vernacular of language, that would just gloss over any doubts the unwilling participant might have in most cases. Try that tactic against the wrong sort, and you will easily out yourself as an imposter.
neowun, have you actually manipulated people for fun, profit, or other? If not, you should try it sometime. It will give you a better sense of the spectrum that is 'social awareness' i.e., common sense.
moderator sarcasm
Some months back, I saw some people working on the phone lines outside my house. They knocked off my DSL connection, so I went out to see what they were doing. They didn't have an SBC truck, so I asked to see their ID. Classically, telcos were very careful about issuing picture IDs to all employees authorized to meet the public or work on plant. There's even a notice in most telephone directories about it, telling customers that all telephone employees are required to carry a telco photo ID.
They didn't have SBC IDs. So I called SBC repair service via a cell phone. They didn't have a clue. So I called 911 and had the local cops come out. They ask the guys for phone company ID, and the techs don't have it. Twenty minutes of confusion as the techs and the cops are calling various parties.
Turned out that SBC had quietly been "outsourcing" some routine outside plant work, and had been sloppy about issuing credentials to the outsourcing contractor. Tied up four techs and two cops for half an hour to straighten that out.
That's what happens when you do it right. Annoys everybody.
Which is why you should bang your mistress in the back of the theater.
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- Get permission first or you'll end up in a world of trouble. Given the likely circumstances of this particular test, I strongly recommend that you cover your ass.
- File a report afterwards, or your mark may never know you were in there - with this target, and especially with your particular toolset, such an outcome is especially likely.
:P
Yes, I have mod points, but this seemed like more fun