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Cybercriminals Select Insiders To Attack Telecom Providers (helpnetsecurity.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Help Net Security:
Cybercriminals are using insiders to gain access to telecommunications networks and subscriber data, according to Kaspersky Lab. In addition, these criminals are also recruiting disillusioned employees through underground channels and blackmailing staff using compromising information gathered from open sources...
According to Kaspersky Lab researchers, if an attack on a cellular service provider is planned, criminals will seek out employees who can provide fast track access to subscriber and company data or SIM card duplication/illegal reissuing. If the target is an Internet service provider, the attackers will try to identify the employees who can enable network mapping and man-in-the-middle attacks.
According to Kaspersky Lab researchers, if an attack on a cellular service provider is planned, criminals will seek out employees who can provide fast track access to subscriber and company data or SIM card duplication/illegal reissuing. If the target is an Internet service provider, the attackers will try to identify the employees who can enable network mapping and man-in-the-middle attacks.
This is not surprising given the industry's constant attack on employee satisfaction. Offshoring, outsourcing, cutting hours and benefits, crappy working conditions. Inside-out security begins with not screwing people over. The companies have shit in their own bed.
How is it that I'm not surprised?
Have gnu, will travel.
Yes, I know that what we now call 'social engineering' has been around for as long as humans existed, and probably longer. But when I say "new tech frontier", I mean the marriage of the scientific method, technological processes, and technologically-gathered data, with more scientifically-rigorous studies and experiments in sociology, psychology, neurology, and biology.
Criminals are now systematically, and probably even experimentally, exploiting employees' psychological and social traits in combination with various technical vulnerabilities. The companies being attacked will feel they have no choice but to respond with their own research and experiments in the area of vetting, monitoring, influencing, and outright brainwashing their employees, (not to mention both prescribing and proscribing certain actions and behaviours), on a 24/7 basis. There will be a lot of science applied to this kind of problem; we're seeing some of it already with things like the Predictive Policing program in Chicago.
George Orwell's work has often been mentioned here on Slashdot, and 1984 was in many ways an eerily prescient work. But if current trends such as those I've outlined above play out as I imagine, we may end up with a less metaphorical, more literal version of Orwell's dystopia.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
Does anyone actually think EditorDavid does a good job as an editor? With articles like this, I sure as hell don't.
This is interesting when you consider the companies out sourcing their IT. So that they don't even know who has the keys to their infrastructure ;) ;)
I can see the CEO and exec's disclaimers now, "Hey it wasn't our fault, We had nothing to do with it!" while pointing fingers
...there are people out there that are just 'hackers', without ever having worked quite extensively in the same environments that they hack up. To think that there are 'hackers' with tons of know-how, but no real-world experience seems naive. Of course, I'm not saying that there aren't people that 'hack at' systems, surely they do, all fucking day long. But they generally get luck here and there, and the rest of the time they are kept at bay (often by their own short-tempered childishness).
This is the same reason why 'Edward Snowden' is known today, and not some malicious 'hacker'.
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
they are the real cybercriminals so nothing of value is lost
I'll put that on my cybercomputer for later reference.
https://usa.kaspersky.com/about-us/press-center/press-releases/2016/Cybercriminals_Recruit_Insiders_to_Attack_Telecommunication_Providers
so why not link to the original source? ...the source is a company which sells security products to other companies, so the report is hardly unbiased...
why link to someone else's blogspam summary?
This story is blame diversion period.
Nobody is out there trying to go all cybercriminal.
If they work they don't have the time to care about attacking telecom providers.
If they are young they don't have the skills. (mom's basements)
If they are old and know how, they are still working and if this is what they do.. they are US Government or similar. FBI usually.
FBI Slashdot is out of bullshit that sticks yeah?
People have always been the weak link in computer security. Criminals may be looking to compromise someone working at their target but there are people who will do anything for a few dollars with no blackmail required. It is almost a certainty that there are foreign agents embedded in every major US technology firm. I am sure the US has the same assets in any foreign companies.
It won't even cost that much to bribe an insider.
A native worker is expensive, but an offshore type who is brought in to replace the expensive folks. . . . not so much.
Start offering the folks who make $20 / day $50,000 and watch how fast your networks fall.
Piffle. Sounds like the something from a Frederick Forsythe/John Le Carré cold-war novel.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I just call after hours and explain that my blt drive just went awol. Not sure what this means but they're usually tripping over themselves to help me with whatever information I need.
Did you think getting secrets was like 'Goldeneye' (1995) or 'Charlie's angels' (2000)? Standard practice has always been to bribe or blackmail people for information. It doesn't take a large bribe either, people quickly betray others for revenge, or self-importance and occasionally, for ideology.
Nothing to read here, moving on ...
n/t