Posted 10:04 PM by Anonymous

The Social Engineer - Fear Him!

Reposted from my journal because I'm feeling guilt for not posting but uninspired. :\

Ok, so I received this email today at work and I literally fell out of my chair laughing. I'm serious people were peering their heads over their cubes looking to see what was going on. I really have to wonder who comes up with this crap sometimes. This email reads like a bad after school special.

A new type of security threat exists today - the social engineer. A social engineer is a person who seeks to gain access to information or systems for personal gain. But they don't use technology to achieve it; they use people - the company employee.

You can stop a social engineer. Be alert to their most common tactics:

Shoulder surfing: looking over someone's shoulder on airplanes, trains, etc. to read confidential information or passwords

Technical support impersonation: impersonating a technical support person requesting employee passwords via phone or e-mail

Unauthorized building access: gaining unauthorized access to offices to steal computers, confidential documents, letterhead, or other proprietary material

Information solicitation: requesting confidential company, client or employee information

...snip...

So I sit here thinking, how dumb would you have to be to fall for some of these scenarios?

Social Engineer: Good Morning Mr. Smith, this is technical support.
Mr. Smith: Um, hi... what can I do for you?
Social Engineer: We need your user name and password to perform some routine maintenance on your computer.
Mr. Smith: Why should I give you my password nothing is wrong with my computer?
Social Engineer: But Mr. Smith we NEED that password!
Mr. Smith ... /click/

or how about this...

Social Engineer: Hi, is this Mr. Jones?
Mr. Jones: Yes, who is calling?
Social Engineer: This is James Highland, I was wondering if you could forward me the billing statement for your client?
Mr Jones: Why the heck shoudl I do that, I don't even KNOW you... who are you?
Social Engineer: Um, well I'm the interim VP of finance.
Mr. Jones: Sure buddy.... /click/

Come on, how stupid do they think we are? So, if you happen to run across a social engineer fear him like no other and run away screaming like a woman. Who says its not fun to work when you can read emails like this.