way to study social engineering

1. Social Engineering: A Test of
Your Common Sense
By Frederick Gallegos, CISA,
CGFM, CDE
Computer Info Systems Dept

2. Social Engineering
• Monday morning, 6am; the electric rooster is
telling you it's time to start a new work week. A
shower, some coffee, and you're in the car and
off. On the way to work you're thinking of all you
need to accomplished this week.
• Then, on top of that there's the recent merger
between your company and a competitor. One of
your associates told you, you better be on your
toes because rumors of layoff's are floating
around.

3. Social Engineering
• You arrive at the office and stop by the restroom
to make sure you look your best. You straighten
your tie, and turn to head to your cube when you
notice, sitting on the back of the sink, is a CD-
ROM. Someone must have left this behind by
accident. You pick it up and notice there is a
label on it. The label reads "2005 Financials &
Layoff's". You get a sinking feeling in your
stomach and hurry to your desk. It looks like
your associate has good reasons for concern,
and you're about to find out for your self.

4. And so
• The Game Is In Play: People Are The Easiest Target
You make it to your desk and insert the CD-ROM. You
find several files on the CD, including a spreadsheet
which you quickly open. The spreadsheet contains a list
of employee names, start dates, salaries, and a note
field that says "Release" or "Retain". You quickly search
for your name but cannot find it. In fact, many of the
names don't seem familiar. Why would they, this is
pretty large company, you don't know everyone.
Since your name is not on the list you feel a bit of relief.
It's time to turn this over to your boss. Your boss thanks
you and you head back to your desk.

5. Let's Take A Step Back In Time
•
The CD you found in the restroom, it was not left there
by accident. It was strategically placed there by me, or
one of Security Consulting employees.
• You see, a firm has been hired to perform a Network
Security Assessment on your company.
• In reality, they have been contracted to hack into your
company from the Internet and have been authorized to
utilize social engineering techniques.

6. Bingo - Gotcha
• The spreadsheet you opened was not the only thing
executing on your computer.
• The moment you open that file you caused a script to
execute which installed a few files on your computer.
• Those files were designed to call home and make a
connection to one of our servers on the Internet. Once
the connection was made the software on the Security
firms servers responded by pushing (or downloading)
several software tools to your computer.
• Tools designed to give the team complete control of
your computer. Now they have a platform, inside your
company's network, where they can continue to hack the
network. And, they can do it from inside without even
being there.

7. This is what we call a 180 degree
attack.
• Meaning, the security consulting team did not have to
defeat the security measures of your company's firewall
from the Internet.
• You took care of that for us.
• Many organizations give their employees unfettered
access (or impose limited control) to the Internet.
• Given this fact, the security firm devised a method for
attacking the network from within with the explicit
purpose of gaining control of a computer on the private
network.
• All we had to do is get someone inside to do it for us.

8. Welcome to Social Engineering
• What would you have done if you found a
CD with this type of information on it?
• Yes it is people who are the weakest link
in any security system and Social
Engineering Exploits that ---

10. Phisher Site Basics
•Thief sends e-mail to customer claiming
to be a legitimate company which has lost
the customer’s personal information
•Customer reads e-mail and goes to fake
website
•Customer enters credit card or other
personal information on website
•Thief steals personal information

11. Phisher Site E-mail Example (part
1)
From: EarthLink <billing@earthlink.net>
To: <thecustomer@earthlink.net>
Date: 7/6/2003 11:50:02 AM
Subject: Billing Department
Dear EarthLink User,
We regret to inform you, but due to a recent system
flush, the billing/personal information for your
account is temporally unavailable, and we need to
verify your identity.
<cont.>

12. Phisher Site E-mail Example (part
2)
In order to continue using your EarthLink account
and keeping it active, you must provide us with
your full information within 24 hours of receiving
this message.
To re-enter your account information and keep
your account active visit:
www.billingdepartment-el.net
Sincerely,
Sean Wright
EarthLink Billing Department

13. Phisher Site Example

14. The Real EarthLink Web Site

15. How to Spot Phisher Sites
TRICKS TIP-OFFS
• E-mail looks legit • Claims of “lost”
(at first) information
• Prompts you to act • Unfamiliar URL
quickly to keep • Asks for credit card or
service other personal info
• Website, html or fax • No log in or not
secure
form looks legit
• Most companies will
not do this

16. Tips for Avoiding Phisher Sites
• Be suspicious of email asking for credit
card or other personal info
• URL should be familiar
• Should require log-in
• Should be a SECURE SITE
• Call the company when in doubt
• Always report spam/fraud to your ISP

17. Federal Trade Commission
Federal Trade Commission
Identity Theft Data Clearinghouse Complaints1
250
CY- CY-2000 CY-2001 CY-2002 CY-20032
1999 Projected Cumulative
Complaint Count 1999-2003: 490,000
Projected Total:
200 210,000
(in thousands)
Total: 161,886
150
n
je ctio
Pro
100
Total: 86,197
50
Total: 31,117
Total:
1,380
0
1
Since February 2001, complaint data have also been provided to the Clearinghouse by the Social Security Administration-Office of Inspector General.
2
Projections for calendar year 2003 are based
on complaints received from January through June 2003.

18. Federal Trade Commission
Consumer Sentinel Complaints1
Federal Trade Commission
380,170
400
- Identity Theft Complaints
- Fraud Complaints
161,886
300 43%
220,088
(in thousands)
200
86,197
139,007 39%
31,117 218,284
22%
100 57%
133,891
78%
107,890 61%
0
CY-2000 CY-2001 CY-2002
1
Percentages are based on the total number of Consumer Sentinel complaints by calendar year.

19. Federal Trade Commission
1-877-FTC-HELP
www.consumer.gov/sentinel
1-877-IDTHEFT
www.consumer.gov/idtheft

22. And Another
• The easiest way to break into any
computer system is to use a valid
username and password and the easiest
way to get that information is to ask
someone for it.

23. The Beginning
• Like many hacking techniques, social
engineering got its start in attacks against
the telephone company. The hacker (or
phone phreaks, as they used to be called)
would dial-up an operator and by using the
right jargon, convince him or her to make
a connection or share some information
that should not have been shared.

24. In Reality
• social engineering is probably as old as
speech, and goes back to the first lie.
• It is still successful today because people
are generally helpful, especially to
someone who is nice, knowledgeable, and
/ or insistent.
• No amount of technology can protect you
against a social engineering attack.

25. So How Do You Protect Yourself
from Yourself?
• Recognizing an Attack
– You can prepare your organization by
teaching people how to recognize a possible
social engineering attack. Do we have a
Cyber Security & Ethics 101 Class?
• Prevent a successful attack
– You can prepare a defense against this form
of social engineering by including instructions
in your security policy for handling it.

26. So How Do You Protect Yourself
from Yourself?
• Create a response plan
– Your response plan should include
instructions on how to deal with inquiries
relating to passwords or other classified
information.
• Implement and Monitor the response plan
and continue to reinforce with Training

27. Target And Attack
• The basic goals of social engineering are the same as
hacking in general: to gain unauthorized access to
systems or information in order to commit fraud, network
intrusion, industrial espionage, identity theft, or simply to
disrupt the system or network.
• Typical targets include telephone companies and
answering services, big-name corporations and financial
institutions, military and government agencies, and
hospitals.
• The Internet boom had its share of industrial engineering
attacks in start-ups as well, but attacks generally focus
on larger entities.

28. And Another
• One morning a few years back, a group of
strangers walked into a large shipping firm and
walked out with access to the firm’s entire
corporate network.
• How did they do it? By obtaining small amounts
of access, bit by bit, from a number of different
employees in that firm. First, they did research
about the company for two days before even
attempting to set foot on the premises.

29. And so on…
• For example, they learned key employees’
names by calling HR. Next, they
pretended to lose their key to the front
door, and a man let them in. Then they
"lost" their identity badges when entering
the third floor secured area, smiled, and a
friendly employee opened the door for
them.

30. And so on…
• The strangers knew the CFO was out of town, so they
were able to enter his office and obtain financial data off
his unlocked computer.
• They dug through the corporate trash, finding all kinds of
useful documents.
• They asked a janitor for a garbage pail in which to place
their contents and carried all of this data out of the
building in their hands.
• The strangers had studied the CFO's voice, so they were
able to phone, pretending to be the CFO, in a rush,
desperately in need of his network password. From
there, they used regular technical hacking tools to gain
super-user access into the system.

31. Common Techniques
• Social Engineering by Phone
• Dumpster Diving
• On-line Social Engineering
• Persuasion
• Reverse Social Engineering
• And many more….

32. Defining The Term "Social
Engineering"
• In the world of computers and technology, social
engineering is a technique used to obtain or attempt to
obtain secure information by tricking an individual into
revealing the information.
• Social engineering is normally quite successful because
most targets (or victims) want to trust people and provide
as much help as possible.
• Victims of social engineering typically have no idea they
have been conned out of useful information or have
been tricked into performing a particular task.
• The prey is not just you but your children and elders as
well

33. A Challenge to the CSU
• This is the 21st Century The Time of
CyberSpace
• Why is their No Formal GE Requirement
for CyberSecurity and Ethics which can
not only be taught at the CSU level but the
CC level as well?
• Why don’t we extend this education to K-
12 and Senior Centers as well?

34. Mt. SAC and Cal Poly Efforts
• NSF Grant Project – Establishment of a
Regional Information Systems Security Center
(RISSC see
http://rissc.mtsac.edu/RISSC_NEW/default.asp )
• Cal Poly’s Participation in the Title V Grant and
development of Network Security curriculum
• Cal Poly Pomona’s Establishment of a Center
for Information Assurance (see
http://www.bus.csupomona.edu/cfia.asp )

35. Please join US for
•
Information Assurance Symposium
Building Information Assurance Capacity
and Improving Infrastructure at Minority
Serving Institutions
December 8 - 10, 2005
Cal Poly Pomona
8:30 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.

36. Contribute to:
• Information Sharing
• Curriculum Development
• Awareness, Knowledge and Development
of initiatives to help others around us be
better at practicing good security
techniques
• Our thanks to Educause, ISACA, ISSA, IIA
and HTCIA for their support