Social-Engineer Newsletter – Vol 05 Issue 71
Trust But Verify
Our world is becoming increasingly more digitized. Doctors carry laptops or tablets from one exam room to another as paper files disappear. Elementary students have their report card emailed home to their parents. Paychecks are directly deposited (at least that one isn’t new). Video conferencing and virtual offices allow a business to employ dozens of workers who have never…
Social-Engineer Newsletter – Vol 05 Issue 68
Lessons from Real World Vishing
Vishing is often the component of social engineering that people are the most nervous about. If you want live proof of this, stop by the SEVillage at DEF CON and you can see exactly how nerve-wracking vishing is for the contestants.
Compared to a phishing email, the risk with vishing feels higher - if you get caught, the target will call you out directly…
Social-Engineer Newsletter – Vol 05 Issue 67
Phishing Dark Waters — An Interview With The Authors
Fishing is simple, right? You have a fishing pole, you bait the hook, and then you sit and wait. But ask someone who loves to fish, a bonafide fisherman, and they will tell you there is so much more to it: the type of fishing line, the lure, the type of bait, how you cast the line, the best location, time of day, etc.
Phishing is no…
Social-Engineer Newsletter – Vol 05 Issue 65
Masquerade
Financial fraud committed with the use of mail, email, or phone, otherwise known as wire fraud, isn’t exactly a new concept. Recently, criminals have refined the spear-phish to the point where they have succeeded in scamming hundreds of thousands of dollars from a company as a result of only a single email. The companies victimized by the latest wire fraud scheme are losing on…
Social-Engineer Newsletter – Vol 05 Issue 64
Venus Fly Traps in the Housing Market
Last year, I made a big cross-country move from Georgia to California. As if moving isn’t terrible enough, trying to find a viable place to live in the most expensive city in the United States is a massive nightmare. You can visit a city dozens of times, and think you’re set to make an informed decision on living arrangements from thousands of miles…
THE SOCIAL ENGINEERING CAPTURE THE FLAG ROUNDUP
As sophisticated, targeted attacks become increasingly prevalent, today’s organizations are being challenged, now more than ever. In effort to shed light on the nature of these types of attacks, Social-Engineer hosts an annual Social Engineering Capture the Flag (SECTF) competition at the DEF CON hacking conference in Las Vegas. At this conference the security elite demonstrate vulnerabilities…
Social-Engineer Newsletter – Vol 05 Issue 60
Information Gathering and the Social Engineer
Is the summer already over? I’m happy to report that the entire SEORG crew made it back alive from DEF CON albeit with a healthy dose of CON flu thanks to nick8ch (who from here on out will be known only as “Patient Zero”). By the way, worst text to ever get as you’re getting on a plane for home is “I had to go to the emergency room last nite, hope I…
Social-Engineer Newsletter – Vol 05 Issue 58
Think Positive and Act Confident
What if you could predict someone’s level of risk-taking simply by observing their non-verbal behavior? What if you could accurately calculate how much exposure to harm or loss a person is willing to accept based on reading their account of a similar situation? Welcome to one of the sciences behind social engineering.
Your risk is showing…
A recent study at…