Social Engineering from the Attacker Perspective
At Social-Engineer, LLC (SECOM), we define social engineering as “any act that influences a person to take an action that may or may not be in their best interest.” If you Google "social engineering,” you will get a very different and more negative definition. However, I prefer our definition, with more broad and general terms, because I feel that social engineering is not always negative.…
Predicting the Future of Social Engineering
Someone once asked me to come up with some positive predictions I see unfolding in the social engineering world. This request got me thinking about the industry in a way that I never had before. It started me thinking about the impact each of us within the industry can have on it. And, through that, the world itself. To be fair, that sounds like a fairly zoomed out “you can have an effect on the…
Social-Engineer Newsletter Vol 09 – Issue 120
Back to School: Education Through Security
No more pencils, no more books, no more teachers' dirty looks. We can all remember singing this as we skipped out of school on the last day of the school year. Some of us had more specific things we sang about; for me, it was my second-grade teachers glaring looks and homework assignments. However, summer vacation was always too short. And before we…
Social-Engineer Newsletter Vol 09 – Issue 119
The CEO/BEC Scam: How Criminals Target Emotions
The Infosec community gained important perspectives from the 2019 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR). From reading the statistics in the report, it’s clear that social attacks are a top threat facing organizations. Of the 2,013 confirmed breaches, 33% included social attacks. In a social attack, criminals target our emotions using…
Social-Engineer Newsletter Vol 09 – Issue 118
SEVillage: 10 Years in Review
Ten years ago, when Chris Hadnagy, Founder & CEO of Social-Engineer, LLC, was first approached by DEF CON founder Jeff Moss and asked to start a social engineering event, he knew he wanted to do something exciting. Until more recently, social engineering was typically only regarded in terms of scoring a free pizza or someone’s phone number. It was not widely…
Social-Engineer Newsletter Vol 09 – Issue 117
Charity Scams are Real: How Low Will They Go to Exploit a Tragedy?
Here at Social-Engineer.org, we have a motto of “leave people feeling better for having met you.” While this is engrained into our lives, work, and everything we do, to be a professional social engineer it’s important for us to be able to still think like an attacker. However, this mental exercise can prove difficult at times,…
Social-Engineer Newsletter Vol 09 – Issue 114
Smile, Facial Recognition in Use
At a sporting event kiosk, you stand there watching rehearsal clips of a singer that will be performing at the half time show. What would you say if I told you that a facial-recognition camera inside the display was taking your photos and cross-referencing them with a database of the performer’s known stalkers? After reading about this happening to many attendees…
Social-Engineer Newsletter Vol 08 – Issue 113
Train as a Social Engineer: The Value of Creating Environments
When I am not wearing my Social Engineering (SE) hat, I am often wearing the hat of “working dog trainer.” What does this mean? It means my dogs and I train in a variety of useful areas, obedience and tracking being some of the main events. The ladies (aka my dogs) can track articles of clothing, metal, and types of plastic, all…