This document provides an introduction to social engineering techniques. It describes common social engineering attacks like phishing emails, baiting websites, spear phishing targeted attacks, watering hole attacks, and physical baiting. Phishing remains the most prolific attack, while spear phishing and watering hole attacks are more sophisticated and targeted. Social engineering preys on human psychology and is difficult to fully prevent with technical controls alone. The best defenses include educating users about social engineering techniques and promoting a security-aware organizational culture. However, a skilled attacker may still successfully retrieve information through social engineering despite mitigation efforts.
IRJET- Phishing and Anti-Phishing TechniquesIRJET Journal
This document discusses phishing attacks and anti-phishing techniques. It begins by defining phishing as a social engineering attack where attackers fool victims into entering sensitive information on fake websites. It then describes various types of phishing attacks, including spear phishing, whaling, and clone phishing. The document also outlines common phishing techniques used by attackers, such as impersonating legitimate websites and using pop-up windows. Finally, it mentions that anti-phishing techniques aim to detect and prevent phishing attacks by recognizing spoofed emails and fraudulent websites.
In this article we will be the focusing on all the aspects of Phishing attacks including the technological advancements, exploitation, post exploitation techniques and the countermeasures techniques against Advanced Phishing” The Art of Stealing” .
We will also learn about payloads , Web Application attacks and Network Attacks and how they contribute to advanced phishing attacks.
Study on Phishing Attacks and Antiphishing ToolsIRJET Journal
This document discusses phishing attacks and anti-phishing tools. It begins by defining phishing as fraudulent attempts to steal users' sensitive information by impersonating trustworthy entities. The document then outlines the common steps in phishing attacks, including planning, setup, attack, collection, fraud, and post-attack actions. It describes different types of phishing attacks and analyzes security issues. The document concludes by describing some popular anti-phishing tools, including Mail-Secure and the Netcraft security toolbar.
The document discusses how customer involvement is crucial to defending against phishing attacks. While technology plays a role, phishing relies on tricking users into taking actions. The most effective solutions are regularly educating customers on identifying phishing techniques and conducting "ethical phishing" tests to modify customer behavior over time. By maintaining awareness and vigilance through ongoing training, organizations can significantly reduce the success of phishing scams.
What are the possible damages of phishing and spoofing mail attacks part 2#...Eyal Doron
We are living in a dangerous world that produces many types of threats and risks to our organizational mail infrastructure, to our users and to us.
In the current article, I would like to review some of the possible damages that we can experience in a scenario, in which Spoof or Phishing mail attacks are realized.
http://o365info.com/what-is-the-possible-damages-of-phishing-spoofing-mail-attacks-part-2-of-9/
1. The document discusses phishing attacks, which involve tricking users into providing private information through fraudulent emails or websites.
2. Phishing attacks are classified into two categories: social engineering attacks, which use psychological tricks, and malware-based attacks, which install harmful software.
3. More recent phishing scams activate positive feelings like hope and gratitude through appealing to emotions and incorporating elements of social networks, which makes the scams more effective at gaining user trust and spreading widely.
This document discusses a study analyzing social media and stylometric features to identify spearphishing emails. The researchers extracted features from emails and linkedin profiles of recipients to classify emails as spearphishing, spam, or benign. Stylometric features from emails like attachment size and subject richness achieved over 96% accuracy distinguishing spearphishing from spam/benign emails. While social media features did not significantly improve classification, the researchers note attackers may use additional social networks to craft more effective spearphishing emails.
IRJET- Phishing and Anti-Phishing TechniquesIRJET Journal
This document discusses phishing attacks and anti-phishing techniques. It begins by defining phishing as a social engineering attack where attackers fool victims into entering sensitive information on fake websites. It then describes various types of phishing attacks, including spear phishing, whaling, and clone phishing. The document also outlines common phishing techniques used by attackers, such as impersonating legitimate websites and using pop-up windows. Finally, it mentions that anti-phishing techniques aim to detect and prevent phishing attacks by recognizing spoofed emails and fraudulent websites.
In this article we will be the focusing on all the aspects of Phishing attacks including the technological advancements, exploitation, post exploitation techniques and the countermeasures techniques against Advanced Phishing” The Art of Stealing” .
We will also learn about payloads , Web Application attacks and Network Attacks and how they contribute to advanced phishing attacks.
Study on Phishing Attacks and Antiphishing ToolsIRJET Journal
This document discusses phishing attacks and anti-phishing tools. It begins by defining phishing as fraudulent attempts to steal users' sensitive information by impersonating trustworthy entities. The document then outlines the common steps in phishing attacks, including planning, setup, attack, collection, fraud, and post-attack actions. It describes different types of phishing attacks and analyzes security issues. The document concludes by describing some popular anti-phishing tools, including Mail-Secure and the Netcraft security toolbar.
The document discusses how customer involvement is crucial to defending against phishing attacks. While technology plays a role, phishing relies on tricking users into taking actions. The most effective solutions are regularly educating customers on identifying phishing techniques and conducting "ethical phishing" tests to modify customer behavior over time. By maintaining awareness and vigilance through ongoing training, organizations can significantly reduce the success of phishing scams.
What are the possible damages of phishing and spoofing mail attacks part 2#...Eyal Doron
We are living in a dangerous world that produces many types of threats and risks to our organizational mail infrastructure, to our users and to us.
In the current article, I would like to review some of the possible damages that we can experience in a scenario, in which Spoof or Phishing mail attacks are realized.
http://o365info.com/what-is-the-possible-damages-of-phishing-spoofing-mail-attacks-part-2-of-9/
1. The document discusses phishing attacks, which involve tricking users into providing private information through fraudulent emails or websites.
2. Phishing attacks are classified into two categories: social engineering attacks, which use psychological tricks, and malware-based attacks, which install harmful software.
3. More recent phishing scams activate positive feelings like hope and gratitude through appealing to emotions and incorporating elements of social networks, which makes the scams more effective at gaining user trust and spreading widely.
This document discusses a study analyzing social media and stylometric features to identify spearphishing emails. The researchers extracted features from emails and linkedin profiles of recipients to classify emails as spearphishing, spam, or benign. Stylometric features from emails like attachment size and subject richness achieved over 96% accuracy distinguishing spearphishing from spam/benign emails. While social media features did not significantly improve classification, the researchers note attackers may use additional social networks to craft more effective spearphishing emails.
Phishing is an attack that deals with social engineering system to illegally get and utilize another person's information for the benefit of authentic site for possess advantage (e.g. Take of client's secret word and Visa precise elements during online correspondence). It is influencing all the significant areas of industry step by step with a considerable measure of abuse of client qualifications. To secure clients against phishing, different hostile to phishing procedures have been suggested that takes after various methodologies like customer side and server side insurance. In this paper we have considered phishing in detail (counting assault process and grouping of phishing assault) and investigated a portion of the current sites to phishing strategies alongside their points of interest and disadvantages.
Spear phishing attacks are a growing problem because they are highly targeted and effective at tricking users into revealing sensitive information or installing malware. Spear phishing emails impersonate trusted sources and use personal details of targets to bypass filters. A famous example is the 2011 RSA attack, where a spear phishing email downloaded malware that ultimately compromised several defense contractors. To stop these advanced attacks, organizations need integrated security across email and web that uses dynamic analysis to detect zero-day exploits and block malicious files and network callbacks, while also providing threat intelligence.
Dealing with the threat of spoof and phishing mail attacks part 6#9 | Eyal ...Eyal Doron
In the following article, we will review the solution and the methods that we can use for dealing with the threat of – Phishing mail attacks and his derivative Spoof mail attack.
What is the meaning of mail phishing attack in simple words part 4#9 | Eyal...Eyal Doron
In the current article, we will continue our journey to the land of “mail threats and dangers,” and this time; our main focus will be on one of the most dangerous and deadly types of mail attack – the Phishing mail attack!
An Indistinguishability Model for Evaluating Diverse Classes of Phishing Atta...CSCJournals
Phishing is a growing threat to Internet users and causes billions of dollars in damage every year. While there are a number of research articles that study the tactics, techniques and procedures employed by phishers in the literature, in this paper, we present a theoretical yet practical model to study this menacing threat in a formal manner. While it is common folklore knowledge that a successful phishing attack entails creating messages that are indistinguishable from the natural, expected messages by the intended victim, this concept has not been formalized. Our model attempts to capture a phishing attack in terms of this indistinguishability between the natural and phishing message probability distributions. We view the actions performed by a phisher as an attempt to create messages that are indistinguishable to the victim from that of “normal” messages. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that places phishing on a concrete theoretical framework and offers a new perspective to analyze this threat. We propose metrics to analyze the success probability of a phishing attack taking into account the input used by a phisher and the work involved in creating deceptive email messages. Finally, we study and apply our model to a new class of phishing attacks called collaborative spear phishing that is gaining momentum. Recent examples include Operation Woolen-Goldfish in 2015, Rocket Kitten in 2014 and Epsilon email breach in 2011. We point out fundamental flaws in the current email-based marketing business model which enables such targeted spear phishing collaborative attacks. In this sense, our study is very timely and presents new and emerging trends in phishing.
Phishing detection in ims using domain ontology and cba an innovative rule ...ijistjournal
User ignorance towards the use of communication services like Instant Messengers, emails, websites, social networks etc. is becoming the biggest advantage for phishers. It is required to create technical awareness in users by educating them to create a phishing detection application which would generate phishing alerts for the user so that phishing messages are not ignored. The lack of basic security features to detect and prevent phishing has had a profound effect on the IM clients, as they lose their faith in e-banking and e-commerce transactions, which will have a disastrous impact on the corporate and banking sectors and businesses which rely heavily on the internet.Very little research contributions were available in for phishing detection in Instant messengers. A context
based, dynamic and intelligent phishing detection
methodology in IMs is proposed, to analyze and detect phishing in Instant Messages with relevance to domain ontology (OBIE) and utilizes the Classification based on Association (CBA) for generating phishing rules and alerting the victims. A PDS Monitoring system algorithm is used to identify the phishing activity during exchange of messages in IMs, with high ratio of precision and recall. The results have shown improvement by the increased percentage of precision and recall when compared to the existing methods.
This document discusses email phishing and countermeasures. It provides examples of data breaches and losses from stolen personal information. Phishing works through social engineering techniques like spoofing emails and websites to steal passwords, credit card numbers, and other details. Users may unwittingly provide such information in response to phishing attacks. Defenses against phishing include educating users, technical filters and monitoring, and legislation against identity theft. Ongoing challenges include the sophistication of attacks versus defenses.
The document provides an overview of phishing technology. It defines phishing as acquiring sensitive user information through deceptive messages, usually via email or websites. The summary explains how phishers create imitation websites to trick users into providing passwords, financial details, or other sensitive data. It also outlines common signs of phishing emails and recommends reporting any suspicious messages and not clicking links within unsolicited emails.
Protecting Corporete Credentials Against Threats 4 48159 wgw03071_usenCMR WORLD TECH
IBM Software Trusteer Apex software specifically protects employee credentials, which are a prime target for cybercriminals. It helps prevent credentials theft via phishing or reuse of corporate credentials on unauthorized sites. Traditional security approaches like policies, education and anti-malware are no longer sufficient, as attacks get more sophisticated. Trusteer Apex focuses on preventing transmission of credentials before they are compromised.
Social Engineering CSO Survival Guide, designing leading edge 21st Century Business Models go to www.esgjrconsultinginc.com to learn more about Software/Network Engineering Solutions.
Lesson iv on fraud awareness (cyber frauds)Kolluru N Rao
1. This document provides an overview of cyber crimes and fraud, defining key terms like fraud, cyber crimes, and social engineering.
2. It describes common types of cyber crimes such as phishing, smishing, vishing, and synthetic identity theft. Cyber stalking, hacking, viruses, and ransomware attacks are also outlined.
3. Safety tips are provided to help prevent people from becoming victims of cyber crimes, including using strong passwords, avoiding public WiFi for financial transactions, and reporting any suspected criminal activity to the police.
1. The document discusses various types of cyber crimes and frauds, providing definitions and examples. It covers topics like social engineering, phishing, cyber stalking, ransomware attacks, and viruses.
2. Types of fraud discussed include COVID-19 related scams, synthetic identity theft, and cyber warfare. Social engineering, phishing emails, SMS phishing ("smishing"), and phone phishing ("vishing") are described as common techniques used.
3. Details are given on how different cyber crimes are carried out, including stages of cyber attacks, how synthetic identities are created, and how viruses and trojans can infiltrate systems covertly. A wide range of attacks targeting individuals and organizations are outlined
1. Cyber threats continue to evolve and take new forms, with traditional anti-virus approaches no longer sufficient against modern threats. New malicious programs are being created faster than legitimate software.
2. Social engineering and phishing attacks targeting individual users directly will increase in popularity and become a primary attack vector in 2010.
3. As new platforms like Windows 7 and smartphones gain popularity, attackers will develop new exploits targeting these systems, and malware affecting Macs and mobile devices will rise.
Phishing involves deceiving users through digital communications to trick them into providing personal information. There are many forms of phishing like spear phishing, whale phishing, smishing, and vishing. Hackers want information like login credentials, addresses, SSNs, and credit cards. Users can protect themselves by carefully examining emails and links for errors or suspicious elements and by using spam filters. Most cyberattacks start with phishing emails, so users should be cautious about opening links or attachments from unknown sources.
A Guide to Internet Security For Businesses- Business.comBusiness.com
Recent revelations by National Security Agency (NSA) renegade contractor Edward Snowden have resulted in many businesses paying more attention to how secure their computer systems are. But even the most “cyber-savvy” businesses can have their computer networks hacked and compromised. Use this whitepaper to understand your threats, protective options, and trends in internet security for businesses.
This document summarizes a seminar on phishing. It defines phishing as attempting to acquire personal information through deceitful communications. It discusses common phishing techniques like link manipulation and website forgery. It provides examples of phishing emails and outlines different types of phishing attacks like deceptive, malware-based, and man-in-the-middle. The document also covers causes of phishing, responses to phishing through social, technical and legal approaches, and effects like identity theft. It concludes by emphasizing the need for a combination of organizational practices, security technologies, and user awareness to reduce phishing.
Improving Phishing URL Detection Using Fuzzy Association Miningtheijes
Phishing is the process to obtain sensitive information such as usernames, passwords, and credit card details by disguising as a trustworthy entity by the use of an electronic communication. Phishing attack continues to pose a solemn risk for web users and annoying threat within the field of electronic commerce. The Phishing detection using fuzzy and binary matrix construction method focuses on discerning the significant features that discriminate between legitimate and phishing URLs. The significant features are extracting the number of dots, length of the host etc., from each URL. These features are then subjected to associative rule mining-apriori and predictive apriori. The rules obtained are interpreted to emphasize the features that are more prevalent in phishing URLs. The key factors for the phished URLs are number of slashes in the URL, dot in the host portion of the URL and length of the URL. The pitfall of binary matrix method is the time complexity. So it impacts the overall speed of the system. The fuzzy based logic association rule mining algorithm was proposed to classify the legitimate and phishing URLs based on the features. The extracted features are converted to fuzzy membership values as “Low”,’ Medium’ and “High”. By applying association rule mining algorithm the rules are generated to detect the phishing URLs. The fuzzy based methodology provides efficient and high rate of phishing detection of URLs
Bill caseyhoneypot comments reveal inside info into top secret works censor...PublicLeaks
The comments from "BillCaseyHoneyPot" contain cryptic statements referring to top secret government surveillance programs like "GROVER" and hint at possessing highly classified information from 1973 that could undermine U.S. national security and sovereignty if publicly released. The comments threaten government agencies and news outlets, and allude to knowledge of covert CIA operations and high-level criminal activity.
Twitter v. holder suit to disclose ns lsPublicLeaks
This document is a complaint filed by Twitter against the U.S. Department of Justice and other government agencies and officials. Twitter seeks a declaratory judgment that government restrictions on its ability to publish information about national security requests it receives, such as National Security Letters, violate its free speech rights under the First Amendment. The government has prohibited Twitter and other companies from publishing any information about such requests unless it follows pre-approved disclosure formats established by the government, which Twitter argues unconstitutionally restrict its right to discuss matters of public concern.
A microwave metamaterial with integrated power harvesting functionalityPublicLeaks
This document describes a power harvesting metamaterial that can convert incident radio frequency (RF) power to direct current (DC) power. A maximum of 36.8% of incident 900 MHz power was experimentally converted by an array of split-ring resonator (SRR) unit cells. Both simulation and experiment showed that maximum harvested power occurs for a resistive load close to 70 ohms. The power harvesting metamaterial demonstrates the potential for metamaterials to integrate power conversion functionality.
Benjamin fulford february 23, 2015 cia put under lockdown by pentagon to st...PublicLeaks
The Pentagon raided the CIA headquarters to stop nuclear terrorism and seize 3 rogue nuclear weapons threatened to be detonated in Ukraine. An explosion near a CIA facility in West Virginia may have been connected. The raid has weakened cabal resistance in the US and allowed a deal to keep the US government operating. However, cabalist factions still remain in parts of the US, UK, Italy and the Vatican working to undermine peace efforts. Ongoing purges in China have targeted cabal-linked billionaires and factions there. The cabal is now threatening new "terrorist" attacks against Western shopping malls for insurance fraud purposes. Developments are expected to continue in March against remaining cabal resistance.
Phishing is an attack that deals with social engineering system to illegally get and utilize another person's information for the benefit of authentic site for possess advantage (e.g. Take of client's secret word and Visa precise elements during online correspondence). It is influencing all the significant areas of industry step by step with a considerable measure of abuse of client qualifications. To secure clients against phishing, different hostile to phishing procedures have been suggested that takes after various methodologies like customer side and server side insurance. In this paper we have considered phishing in detail (counting assault process and grouping of phishing assault) and investigated a portion of the current sites to phishing strategies alongside their points of interest and disadvantages.
Spear phishing attacks are a growing problem because they are highly targeted and effective at tricking users into revealing sensitive information or installing malware. Spear phishing emails impersonate trusted sources and use personal details of targets to bypass filters. A famous example is the 2011 RSA attack, where a spear phishing email downloaded malware that ultimately compromised several defense contractors. To stop these advanced attacks, organizations need integrated security across email and web that uses dynamic analysis to detect zero-day exploits and block malicious files and network callbacks, while also providing threat intelligence.
Dealing with the threat of spoof and phishing mail attacks part 6#9 | Eyal ...Eyal Doron
In the following article, we will review the solution and the methods that we can use for dealing with the threat of – Phishing mail attacks and his derivative Spoof mail attack.
What is the meaning of mail phishing attack in simple words part 4#9 | Eyal...Eyal Doron
In the current article, we will continue our journey to the land of “mail threats and dangers,” and this time; our main focus will be on one of the most dangerous and deadly types of mail attack – the Phishing mail attack!
An Indistinguishability Model for Evaluating Diverse Classes of Phishing Atta...CSCJournals
Phishing is a growing threat to Internet users and causes billions of dollars in damage every year. While there are a number of research articles that study the tactics, techniques and procedures employed by phishers in the literature, in this paper, we present a theoretical yet practical model to study this menacing threat in a formal manner. While it is common folklore knowledge that a successful phishing attack entails creating messages that are indistinguishable from the natural, expected messages by the intended victim, this concept has not been formalized. Our model attempts to capture a phishing attack in terms of this indistinguishability between the natural and phishing message probability distributions. We view the actions performed by a phisher as an attempt to create messages that are indistinguishable to the victim from that of “normal” messages. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that places phishing on a concrete theoretical framework and offers a new perspective to analyze this threat. We propose metrics to analyze the success probability of a phishing attack taking into account the input used by a phisher and the work involved in creating deceptive email messages. Finally, we study and apply our model to a new class of phishing attacks called collaborative spear phishing that is gaining momentum. Recent examples include Operation Woolen-Goldfish in 2015, Rocket Kitten in 2014 and Epsilon email breach in 2011. We point out fundamental flaws in the current email-based marketing business model which enables such targeted spear phishing collaborative attacks. In this sense, our study is very timely and presents new and emerging trends in phishing.
Phishing detection in ims using domain ontology and cba an innovative rule ...ijistjournal
User ignorance towards the use of communication services like Instant Messengers, emails, websites, social networks etc. is becoming the biggest advantage for phishers. It is required to create technical awareness in users by educating them to create a phishing detection application which would generate phishing alerts for the user so that phishing messages are not ignored. The lack of basic security features to detect and prevent phishing has had a profound effect on the IM clients, as they lose their faith in e-banking and e-commerce transactions, which will have a disastrous impact on the corporate and banking sectors and businesses which rely heavily on the internet.Very little research contributions were available in for phishing detection in Instant messengers. A context
based, dynamic and intelligent phishing detection
methodology in IMs is proposed, to analyze and detect phishing in Instant Messages with relevance to domain ontology (OBIE) and utilizes the Classification based on Association (CBA) for generating phishing rules and alerting the victims. A PDS Monitoring system algorithm is used to identify the phishing activity during exchange of messages in IMs, with high ratio of precision and recall. The results have shown improvement by the increased percentage of precision and recall when compared to the existing methods.
This document discusses email phishing and countermeasures. It provides examples of data breaches and losses from stolen personal information. Phishing works through social engineering techniques like spoofing emails and websites to steal passwords, credit card numbers, and other details. Users may unwittingly provide such information in response to phishing attacks. Defenses against phishing include educating users, technical filters and monitoring, and legislation against identity theft. Ongoing challenges include the sophistication of attacks versus defenses.
The document provides an overview of phishing technology. It defines phishing as acquiring sensitive user information through deceptive messages, usually via email or websites. The summary explains how phishers create imitation websites to trick users into providing passwords, financial details, or other sensitive data. It also outlines common signs of phishing emails and recommends reporting any suspicious messages and not clicking links within unsolicited emails.
Protecting Corporete Credentials Against Threats 4 48159 wgw03071_usenCMR WORLD TECH
IBM Software Trusteer Apex software specifically protects employee credentials, which are a prime target for cybercriminals. It helps prevent credentials theft via phishing or reuse of corporate credentials on unauthorized sites. Traditional security approaches like policies, education and anti-malware are no longer sufficient, as attacks get more sophisticated. Trusteer Apex focuses on preventing transmission of credentials before they are compromised.
Social Engineering CSO Survival Guide, designing leading edge 21st Century Business Models go to www.esgjrconsultinginc.com to learn more about Software/Network Engineering Solutions.
Lesson iv on fraud awareness (cyber frauds)Kolluru N Rao
1. This document provides an overview of cyber crimes and fraud, defining key terms like fraud, cyber crimes, and social engineering.
2. It describes common types of cyber crimes such as phishing, smishing, vishing, and synthetic identity theft. Cyber stalking, hacking, viruses, and ransomware attacks are also outlined.
3. Safety tips are provided to help prevent people from becoming victims of cyber crimes, including using strong passwords, avoiding public WiFi for financial transactions, and reporting any suspected criminal activity to the police.
1. The document discusses various types of cyber crimes and frauds, providing definitions and examples. It covers topics like social engineering, phishing, cyber stalking, ransomware attacks, and viruses.
2. Types of fraud discussed include COVID-19 related scams, synthetic identity theft, and cyber warfare. Social engineering, phishing emails, SMS phishing ("smishing"), and phone phishing ("vishing") are described as common techniques used.
3. Details are given on how different cyber crimes are carried out, including stages of cyber attacks, how synthetic identities are created, and how viruses and trojans can infiltrate systems covertly. A wide range of attacks targeting individuals and organizations are outlined
1. Cyber threats continue to evolve and take new forms, with traditional anti-virus approaches no longer sufficient against modern threats. New malicious programs are being created faster than legitimate software.
2. Social engineering and phishing attacks targeting individual users directly will increase in popularity and become a primary attack vector in 2010.
3. As new platforms like Windows 7 and smartphones gain popularity, attackers will develop new exploits targeting these systems, and malware affecting Macs and mobile devices will rise.
Phishing involves deceiving users through digital communications to trick them into providing personal information. There are many forms of phishing like spear phishing, whale phishing, smishing, and vishing. Hackers want information like login credentials, addresses, SSNs, and credit cards. Users can protect themselves by carefully examining emails and links for errors or suspicious elements and by using spam filters. Most cyberattacks start with phishing emails, so users should be cautious about opening links or attachments from unknown sources.
A Guide to Internet Security For Businesses- Business.comBusiness.com
Recent revelations by National Security Agency (NSA) renegade contractor Edward Snowden have resulted in many businesses paying more attention to how secure their computer systems are. But even the most “cyber-savvy” businesses can have their computer networks hacked and compromised. Use this whitepaper to understand your threats, protective options, and trends in internet security for businesses.
This document summarizes a seminar on phishing. It defines phishing as attempting to acquire personal information through deceitful communications. It discusses common phishing techniques like link manipulation and website forgery. It provides examples of phishing emails and outlines different types of phishing attacks like deceptive, malware-based, and man-in-the-middle. The document also covers causes of phishing, responses to phishing through social, technical and legal approaches, and effects like identity theft. It concludes by emphasizing the need for a combination of organizational practices, security technologies, and user awareness to reduce phishing.
Improving Phishing URL Detection Using Fuzzy Association Miningtheijes
Phishing is the process to obtain sensitive information such as usernames, passwords, and credit card details by disguising as a trustworthy entity by the use of an electronic communication. Phishing attack continues to pose a solemn risk for web users and annoying threat within the field of electronic commerce. The Phishing detection using fuzzy and binary matrix construction method focuses on discerning the significant features that discriminate between legitimate and phishing URLs. The significant features are extracting the number of dots, length of the host etc., from each URL. These features are then subjected to associative rule mining-apriori and predictive apriori. The rules obtained are interpreted to emphasize the features that are more prevalent in phishing URLs. The key factors for the phished URLs are number of slashes in the URL, dot in the host portion of the URL and length of the URL. The pitfall of binary matrix method is the time complexity. So it impacts the overall speed of the system. The fuzzy based logic association rule mining algorithm was proposed to classify the legitimate and phishing URLs based on the features. The extracted features are converted to fuzzy membership values as “Low”,’ Medium’ and “High”. By applying association rule mining algorithm the rules are generated to detect the phishing URLs. The fuzzy based methodology provides efficient and high rate of phishing detection of URLs
Bill caseyhoneypot comments reveal inside info into top secret works censor...PublicLeaks
The comments from "BillCaseyHoneyPot" contain cryptic statements referring to top secret government surveillance programs like "GROVER" and hint at possessing highly classified information from 1973 that could undermine U.S. national security and sovereignty if publicly released. The comments threaten government agencies and news outlets, and allude to knowledge of covert CIA operations and high-level criminal activity.
Twitter v. holder suit to disclose ns lsPublicLeaks
This document is a complaint filed by Twitter against the U.S. Department of Justice and other government agencies and officials. Twitter seeks a declaratory judgment that government restrictions on its ability to publish information about national security requests it receives, such as National Security Letters, violate its free speech rights under the First Amendment. The government has prohibited Twitter and other companies from publishing any information about such requests unless it follows pre-approved disclosure formats established by the government, which Twitter argues unconstitutionally restrict its right to discuss matters of public concern.
A microwave metamaterial with integrated power harvesting functionalityPublicLeaks
This document describes a power harvesting metamaterial that can convert incident radio frequency (RF) power to direct current (DC) power. A maximum of 36.8% of incident 900 MHz power was experimentally converted by an array of split-ring resonator (SRR) unit cells. Both simulation and experiment showed that maximum harvested power occurs for a resistive load close to 70 ohms. The power harvesting metamaterial demonstrates the potential for metamaterials to integrate power conversion functionality.
Benjamin fulford february 23, 2015 cia put under lockdown by pentagon to st...PublicLeaks
The Pentagon raided the CIA headquarters to stop nuclear terrorism and seize 3 rogue nuclear weapons threatened to be detonated in Ukraine. An explosion near a CIA facility in West Virginia may have been connected. The raid has weakened cabal resistance in the US and allowed a deal to keep the US government operating. However, cabalist factions still remain in parts of the US, UK, Italy and the Vatican working to undermine peace efforts. Ongoing purges in China have targeted cabal-linked billionaires and factions there. The cabal is now threatening new "terrorist" attacks against Western shopping malls for insurance fraud purposes. Developments are expected to continue in March against remaining cabal resistance.
#Op deatheaters uk twitterstorm packagePublicLeaks
This document calls for a Twitter storm on February 13th to raise awareness of institutional pedophilia and child abuse scandals in the UK that have been covered up. It provides sample tweets focusing on specific cases and locations in the UK like Rotherham, Westminster, Scotland, and Northern Ireland to disseminate during the Twitter storm. The goal is to apply public pressure on the government and hold accountable those complicit in enabling and hiding the extensive child abuse that has occurred.
Navy t aoe 6 class fast combat support ship opnav-3501-243bPublicLeaks
The document provides the required operational capabilities (ROC) and projected operational environment (POE) for the Supply (T-AOE 6) Class Fast Combat Support Ship. The POE describes the ship's mission to operate logistically in a high-density, multi-threat environment as part of a carrier strike group, surface action group, or amphibious ready group. The ROC establishes the capabilities required for different readiness conditions, including replenishment, wartime, and peacetime operations. Primary mission areas include logistics, mobility, and command/control communications.
Asymmetric warfare group report psychological and sociological concepts of r...PublicLeaks
This document provides a summary of theories and concepts from psychology and sociology that are relevant to understanding the process of radicalization. It examines 16 theories that have been proposed to explain radicalization, such as relative deprivation theory, social network theory, and identity theory. It also analyzes 12 mechanisms through which radicalization can occur, such as mass radicalization through conflict with an outgroup or individual radicalization through personal grievance. For each mechanism, an example is given from the real world. Risk factors for radicalization and programs for deradicalization are also discussed. The purpose is to provide military personnel with an overview of the current understanding from social sciences around why and how radicalization happens.
White Paper: Social Engineering and Cyber Attacks: The Psychology of DeceptionEMC
Social engineering relies on manipulating human psychology rather than technology. It works by exploiting human trust and emotions like fear, curiosity, and greed. Cybercriminals use social engineering tactics like phishing emails that appear to come from trusted sources to trick victims into revealing passwords and other sensitive information or downloading malware. While technology security measures are important, social engineering targets the human link. Education and awareness training to help users identify social engineering scams can help reduce the success of these attacks.
The document discusses various types of social engineering attacks including phishing, spear phishing, baiting, vishing, pretexting, and scareware attacks. It provides examples and steps to perform a phishing attack using Social Engineering Toolkit in Kali Linux, targeting Facebook login credentials. Spear phishing and baiting attacks are also summarized, explaining how personalized or malicious attachments and links are used to trick victims.
This document discusses legal and ethical issues related to technology and communication in education, focusing on phishing and software privacy. It defines phishing as a type of social engineering attack where attackers try to trick users into revealing sensitive information. Common phishing techniques include promising too-good-to-be-true offers, creating a sense of urgency, including suspicious links or attachments in emails, and impersonating unusual senders. It also discusses how to prevent phishing attacks and defines different types like spear phishing. The document then discusses software privacy, describing types of privacy software that protect users' internet privacy and data through whitelisting/blacklisting, encryption, intrusion detection systems, and steganography.
Phishing is basically the type of cybercrime in which attackers imitates a real person through institution and mimics that they are sending message from an authorized organization and then take the details of the user personal identity, credit card details and any type of bank information and will breach the personal details of the user. There are many free tools to help in web based scams. Basically the free anti phishing toolbars in the below given study were examined many example in which Spoof Guard anti phishing toolbar is sufficient and good at identifying fraudulent sites and can also gave false positive results. Earth Link, Google, Net Craft, Cloud Mark and Internet Explorer seven detected many of the fraudulent or fake sites even more than 15 of fraudulent sites are false positive. Trust Watch, eBay and Netscape correctly found the fraudulent websites and by the combination of the toolbars the expected outcome came out. Dr. Lalit Pratap | Mr. Shubham Sangwan | Monika "E-Mail Phishing Prevention and Detection" Published in International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (ijtsrd), ISSN: 2456-6470, Volume-6 | Issue-3 , April 2022, URL: https://www.ijtsrd.com/papers/ijtsrd49541.pdf Paper URL: https://www.ijtsrd.com/other-scientific-research-area/other/49541/email-phishing-prevention-and-detection/dr-lalit-pratap
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Phishing is a type of social engineering attack that attempts to steal user data like login credentials. It works by tricking users into clicking links or downloading files that can install malware. Phishing has been around for decades and is still one of the most common cyberattacks. It often leads to financial losses from stolen funds or data breaches. Common phishing techniques include link manipulation, smishing (phishing via text), vishing (phishing via phone), fake websites, and pop-up messages. Spotting and avoiding phishing requires being wary of urgent or threatening language, suspicious links and files, and requests for private information from unexpected sources.
A FRAMEWORK FOR SECURING EMAIL ENTRANCES AND MITIGATING PHISHING IMPERSONATIO...IJNSA Journal
Emails are used every day for communication, and many countries and organisations mostly use email for official communications. It is highly valued and recognised for confidential conversations and transactions in day-to-day business. The Often use of this channel and the quality of information it carries attracted cyber attackers to it. There are many existing techniques to mitigate attacks on email, however, the systems are more focused on email content and behaviour and not securing entrances to email boxes, composition, and settings. This work intends to protect users' email composition and settings to prevent attackers from using an account when it gets hacked or hijacked and stop them from setting forwarding on the victim's email account to a different account which automatically stops the user from receiving emails. A secure code is applied to the composition send button to curtail insider impersonation attack. Also, to secure open applications on public and private devices.
The document discusses internet and network security risks and solutions. It provides an overview of common security threats like cybercrime, malware, and social engineering attacks. It then describes intrusion detection systems (IDS) and intrusion prevention systems (IPS) as basic concepts. IDS passively monitors network traffic and alerts administrators of potential threats, while IPS actively blocks malicious traffic in addition to detecting and alerting. The document analyzes IDS/IPS solutions and their role in providing security for networks and systems.
Phishing is a type of social engineering attack where attackers masquerade as trusted entities to trick victims into opening malicious links or revealing sensitive information. This can lead to malware installation, ransomware attacks, or identity theft of individuals. For organizations, phishing is often used to gain access to corporate or government networks, bypassing security to distribute malware or steal privileged data. While phishing targets individuals, it can severely damage organizations through financial losses, declining market share and reputation from security incidents. Two-factor authentication is the most effective way for enterprises to mitigate phishing and spear phishing attacks by adding an extra verification layer when logging into sensitive systems and applications.
The International Journal of Engineering & Science is aimed at providing a platform for researchers, engineers, scientists, or educators to publish their original research results, to exchange new ideas, to disseminate information in innovative designs, engineering experiences and technological skills. It is also the Journal's objective to promote engineering and technology education. All papers submitted to the Journal will be blind peer-reviewed. Only original articles will be published.
A COMPREHENSIVE SURVEY OF PHISHING ATTACKS AND DEFENCES: HUMAN FACTORS, TRAIN...IJNSA Journal
This document provides a comprehensive literature review on phishing attacks and defenses with a focus on the human and emotional factors that contribute to phishing victimization. It defines phishing and provides an overview of common phishing types identified by researchers and security organizations. It also compares different training approaches and recommendations from studies and organizations for avoiding phishing attacks, highlighting the importance of education, awareness training, and developing strategies to promote mindfulness when evaluating online messages and links.
Phishing is a form of hacking that involves using deceptive emails or fake websites to steal user data like login credentials. It works by tricking users into believing they are on legitimate websites by using authentic looking designs. Phishing attacks come in different forms like deceptive, spear, and whaling phishing. Users can protect themselves by being educated on how to identify phishing scams and using security technologies like email filters and firewalls. Organizations should implement layered security and train employees to reduce the impact of phishing attacks.
Methods of Infiltration discusses different techniques used by attackers to infiltrate computer systems. It outlines four main methods: social engineering which manipulates users, Wi-Fi password cracking to access networks, phishing which uses fake emails to steal information, and vulnerability exploitation where systems are scanned for weaknesses. An example of the latter is advanced persistent threats targeting organizations through long-term stealth attacks. While infiltration methods aim to enter and potentially damage computers, the document concludes by stating the examples provided are not positive for individuals.
It gives information regarding 6 different cyber attacks which most of the people become a victim of and which part of society is affected by which attack.
It explains how this attacks are done by hackers and explains ways to prevent them.
This document discusses phishing attacks and ways to counter them. It begins with an abstract that introduces the topic of email phishing and its growing security problems. The main body is divided into sections that: 1) explain how phishing attacks work and their typical stages, from creating spoofed websites to tricking victims into providing sensitive information; 2) describe different types of phishing scams like spear phishing, whaling, and pharming; 3) outline warning signs that an email may be a phishing attempt, such as coming from an unknown sender or having odd writing; and 4) suggest awareness and technical solutions to help prevent falling victim to phishing.
The document discusses email phishing attacks and strategies to prevent them. It defines the attack surface as all possible entry points for unauthorized access, such as vulnerabilities, devices, and network nodes. Phishing works by tricking users into clicking links or entering login credentials on fake websites that look like legitimate ones. The document recommends educating users about phishing, punishing attackers legally, detecting and blocking phishing websites, and using technical methods like spam filters to stop phishing emails. It prioritizes improving remote access policies, separating personal and work data, frequently updating security systems, strong passwords, multi-factor authentication, and security training for employees.
Social enigneering (Security) is the new threat and its growing day by day specially in India and its sub contenents. this presentation is all aout social engineering threat and some tips to prevent from this attack.
Research Paper on Spreading Awareness About Phishing Attack Is Effective In R...IRJET Journal
This document summarizes a research paper on assessing whether spreading awareness about phishing attacks is effective in reducing attacks. Key points:
1. Phishing attacks are increasing and allow criminals to deceive users and steal important data. Spreading phishing awareness through training may help reduce attacks by empowering users to identify phishing emails and avoid risks.
2. Phishing awareness training can help organizations meet regulatory compliance requirements and make employees the first line of defense against cyberattacks.
3. Studies show that most data breaches are caused by phishing and losses from business email compromise attacks are increasing, demonstrating the need to minimize phishing attacks through awareness training.
4. A survey found that while most people
Similar to Uk computer emergency response team (cert) introduction to social engineering (20)
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Summary
Social engineering is one of the most prolific and effective means of gaining access to secure systems
and obtaining sensitive information, yet requires minimal technical knowledge. Attacks vary from bulk
phishing emails with little sophistication through to highly targeted, multi-layered attacks which use a
range of social engineering techniques. Social engineering works by manipulating normal human
behavioural traits and as such there are only limited technical solutions to guard against it. As a result,
the best defence is to educate users on the techniques used by social engineers, and raising awareness
as to how both humans and computer systems can be manipulated to create a false level of trust. This
can be complemented by an organisational attitude towards security that promotes the sharing of
concerns, enforces information security rules and supports users for adhering to them. Even so, a
determined attacker with sufficient skill, resources and ultimately, luck, will be able to retrieve the
information they are seeking. For this reason, organisations and individuals should have measures in
place to respond to, and recover from, a successful attack.
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Introduction
In cyber-security, social engineering refers to the manipulation of individuals in order to induce them
to carry out specific actions or to divulge information that can be of use to an attacker. Social
engineering in itself does not necessarily require a large amount of technical knowledge in order to
be successful. Instead, social engineering preys on common aspects of human psychology such as
curiosity, courtesy, gullibility, greed, thoughtlessness, shyness and apathy.1
Social engineering techniques are commonly used to deliver malicious software (malware2
) but in
some cases only form part of an attack, as an enabler to gain additional information, commit fraud or
obtain access to secure systems. Social engineering techniques range from indiscriminate wide scale
attacks, which are crude and can normally be easily identified, through to sophisticated multi-layered
tailored attacks which can be almost indistinguishable from genuine interactions.
Social engineers are creative, and their tactics can be expected to evolve to take advantage of new
technologies and situations. This paper outlines some of the most common and effective forms of
social engineering.
Wide scale attacks
Phishing
The most prolific form of social engineering is phishing, accounting for an estimated 77% of all social-
based attacks with over 37 million users reporting phishing attacks in 2013.3
Phishing is the fraudulent
attempt to steal personal or sensitive information by masquerading as a well-known or trusted
contact. Whilst email phishing is the most common, phishing attacks can also be conducted via phone
calls, text messages and fax, as well as other methods of communication, including social media.
A large amount of wide scale email phishing attacks remain unsophisticated and will be recognised by
most (although not all) computer users as illegitimate. However, email phishing is becoming
increasingly sophisticated and attackers will use a variety of techniques to either make the email
appear legitimate or to lure the victim into acting before thinking. Attackers may disguise the address
the email is sent from so that it appears to be from a well-known organisation and common ones
include banks, utility companies, couriers, recruitment agencies and government. Better designed
phishing emails will actually appear to be very similar imitations of legitimate emails from these
organisations (see example 1). Another common technique is to make use of major news events by
posing as having new information on the event, or asking the recipient to take action (donate money,
sign a petition, etc.) in relation to the event.
Despite increasing competency in wide scale campaigns, there are still indicators that frequently
appear in phishing emails:
Messages are unsolicited (i.e. the victim did nothing to initiate the action)
Messages are vague, not addressed to the target by name and beyond purporting to be from
a known organisation, contain little other specific or accurate information to build trust
May be from an organisation with which the target has no dealing with
1
How hackers exploit 'the seven deadly sins', BBC News http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20717773
2
See CERT-UK’s ‘An introduction to malware’: https://www.cert.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/An-
introduction-to-malware.pdf
3
The Social Engineering Infographic http://www.social-engineer.org/social-engineering/social-engineering-
infographic/
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Contain poor spelling and grammar, typos or use odd phrases; whilst this is becoming less
common as attackers are becoming more proficient, mistakes are still made
Are too good to be true or make unrealistic threats, often with a sense of urgency
Are sent from an email address that, whilst perhaps similar, does not match ones used
officially by an organisation
Contain incorrect or poor versions of an organisation’s logo, and may contain web links to
sites that, whilst perhaps similar, are not ones used by that organisation
Phishing emails often ask the user to follow a link to a website or open an attachment. Some may ask
the user to reply to the email, after which they will be engaged in an exchange of messages to elicit
confidential information. When asked to click on a link, it may be designed so that the text the victim
clicks on appears to be for a known website, but the link takes them to a completely different website
(a technique known as obfuscation). At the website, the victim will then be asked to enter confidential
information or may unknowingly download a file which will subsequently infect their machine with
malware. Likewise, any attachment on a phishing email is likely to contain malware. 4
More sophisticated phishing campaigns may even extend to taking victims to a close replica of a
legitimate website that is designed to trick them into entering username, password or other
confidential information.
Baiting
Another form of wide scale attack is baiting through the use of online adverts and websites. As with
phishing, these will usually have offers that are too good to be true or with an urgent warning. This
includes some websites that allow the user to download or stream videos (i.e. movies or TV shows),
or pop-ups that purport to have detected a problem with the victim’s system which clicking on the
pop-up will solve. Following the links provided in the bait, a user may then be tricked into giving away
4
O2 Phishing alert mid-2014 http://news.o2.co.uk/2014/05/29/phishing-alert-may-2014/
Example 1 – A phishing emailiii Although it appears to be from O2, closer inspection, by right
clicking or hovering over the name, shows the email address has
been spoofed. For example, ‘user123@o2-mail.com’. An official O2
email would come from ‘@o2.co.uk’.
The subject title is 02 (zero-two) not O2
Hovering over the link here will show that it
will not take the user to O2’s website, but
to a completely unrelated website
A comma is used instead of a decimal point
By the time this email was sent, O2 has discontinued
their ‘Lucy’ virtual assistant
It is addressed generically, not to the customer by name
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personal information, or their machine may automatically download malware. These attacks can be
crude, but others are sophisticated and persistent (see example 2).5
Another mass form of baiting is the use of ‘free’ Wi-Fi hotspots, although this requires some technical
knowledge. The attacker creates a Wi-Fi hotspot that is clearly labelled as ‘free’, typically in public
areas such as coffee shops, airports and hotel rooms. Whilst they may provide a victim with an internet
connection, any data sent over this connection can be intercepted by the attacker, through what is
known as a ‘man-in-the-middle’ attack.6
The ability to intercept the victim’s data can extend even to
secure connections to services such as online banking. The attacker may also be able to remotely
install malware on to the victim’s system, allowing a range of further exploits to be carried out.
Focusing the attack
Spear phishing
Spear phishing is used by more sophisticated attackers who will limit the target audience and increase
the precision of their messages, increasing the appeal of the message and apparent legitimacy. A spear
phishing attack may target individuals within a particular business sector, who work in the same
company, in the same department, or who share some other common attribute. A spear phishing
email may even target just one specific individual if they are seen to be of sufficient value to the
attacker. Whilst this decreases the number of potential victims, it is also likely to result in a higher
proportion falling for their attack. Some spear phishing attacks can still be crude, and still remain easy
to spot as they contain some of the indicators listed above. Others can appear legitimate and are
extremely difficult to identify as malicious.
A competent attacker will research their target(s) in order to maximise their chances of success. They
will try to find out information about the organisation, including organisational charts, contact details
5
BAE Shylock Whitepaper http://info.baesystemsdetica.com/rs/baesystems/images/ShylockWhitepaper.pdf
6
This is similar to another technique call ‘Evil Twin’ where an attacker creates a Wi-Fi network with the same
name as a known public network (e.g. ‘BTOpenzone’ or ‘Starbucks’), that a smartphone, tablet or computer
will automatically connect to. As with baiting, this now enables the attacker to intercept all data sent by the
victim. Unlike baiting however, this can happen without the user’s knowledge if their device is set to
automatically connect to known public networks.
Example 2 – Shylock
Shylock is a sophisticated, hard to detect, adaptable piece of malware that enables criminals to
steal victims’ credentials and support financial cybercrime. Whilst UK-led law enforcement activity
in mid-2014 successfully disrupted and reduced the prevalence of Shylock, it still continues to be
used by criminals. The UK was a major target for Shylock, and at its height around 61% of all
infected websites were UK based – the majority of these being from the retail sector.iv
Shylock is distributed via a variety of methods, including malicious code embedded into online
adverts which subsequently appear on legitimate websites and the direct targeting and
compromise of popular websites. Some compromised websites may display a ‘missing plugins’
message with a button to install the missing plugins. When clicked this downloads and installs
Shylock onto the victim’s system.
Once running, Shylock, can send any data entered into a computer to the attacker, including
website credentials and other sensitive information. It can even create a false ‘chat’ window on a
banking website, enabling the attacker to interact with the intended victim in order to persuade
them to give up additional sensitive information – effectively a second layer of social engineering.
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and combine this with knowledge obtained from their victim’s social media profiles and other publicly
available information. Rather than a generic greeting, a recipient is likely to be addressed by name
and the message will probably include other personalised details. An attacker is likely to use the
identity of a third party that is to be known or of interest to the intended victim(s), such as a supplier,
to leverage existing trust relationships. Similarly, the attacker may try to replicate the third party’s
email address and use their research to assume the identity of someone who is employed by the third
party, potentially someone who they believe their victim(s) know. They may even attempt to gain
access to a third party’s email account (see example 3). 7
Watering hole attacks
Watering hole attacks, similar to baiting, use trusted websites to infect victim’s computers. They are
typically more sophisticated than most other social engineering techniques as they also require some
technical knowledge. A watering hole attack works by compromise a trusted third party website to
deliver malicious code against the intended victim’s computer. As with other targeted social
engineering attacks, the attacker will research their intended victim(s) and identify one or more
trusted websites that they are likely to access. This may be a supplier’s website, an industry journal,
think tank or some other website that the attacker has identified as of interest to the intended victim.
Having identified a suitable website (or websites), the attacker will seek out vulnerabilities within the
server that hosts the website, and having found one, insert code that will enable malware to be
downloaded, sometimes with little or no interaction from the victim (known as a ‘drive-by’ attack).
7
Hacking the Street?, FireEye, http://www2.fireeye.com/rs/fireye/images/rpt-fin4.pdf
Example 3 – A spear phishing emailv
The example to the left has been
attributed to a group called ‘Fin4’
by FireEye, a cyber-security
company. Fin4 were identified as
targeting individuals within
companies who had access to
information about market
catalysts (i.e. events that would
cause changes in stock prices). In
this example, Fin4 successfully
compromised the email of an
individual at a public company
(possibly through the use of social
engineering), and then used the
compromised account to send a
message that would play on a
chief executive’s concerns:
damage to reputation and
disclosure of confidential
information. Prompted by this,
the victim would click on the link
in the email, which would result
in the download of malware.
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Attacking on multiple fronts
A determined attacker may adopt a multi-layered approach along with additional techniques to
increase their target’s trust, or confusion, in order to maximise the chance of success. Whilst
somewhat indiscriminate, an attacker could begin dialling random numbers within an organisation
claiming to be IT support (potentially using a real name from the IT support department gleaned from
social media) until they eventually find a victim that does have an IT issue. In their attempt to solve
the problem, they will trick the user into giving them login, password or other information that will be
useful in compromising their computer. Alternatively, the attacker may pretend to be an executive,
urgently demanding to be sent an important (and sensitive) document to their personal email address
as they cannot access their work account. In both cases, the victim is put under pressure to do
something they should know they should not do: they do not want to question someone who knows
more than them (IT support), or who is senior to them (the executive), and refusal to comply could
get them in trouble. Some attackers may be even more creative (see example 4). 8
Such sophisticated attacks are usually reserved for targets who will have access to valuable
information, such as chief executives; this type of spear phishing is known as whaling.
Physical baiting
An attacker may also use hardware to bait a target or group of targets. The nature of this type of social
engineering means that it is typically only used by more sophisticated attackers against a particular
sector, organisation or individual. A common example of baiting is to leave a form of digital media
(e.g. a USB flash drive, CD, DVD) unattended, perhaps labelled with something alluring to, and in a
location frequented by, the intended victim (like a car park). The intent is that they will pick it up and
then use it on a personal or work computer, whereupon that computer is infected with malware.
Another form of physical baiting can be at conferences or other events, where the attacker is in a
position to hand out free USB drives as gifts, or provide further information on digital media, which is
secretly loaded with malware.
8
Social Engineering: The Art of Human Hacking, Chris Hadnagy
Example 4 – A sophisticated social engineering attack
As part of a vulnerability assessment for an organisation, an assessor carried out some information
gathering and found the locations of servers, IP addresses, email addresses, phone numbers,
physical addresses, mail servers, employee names, titles and much more. Through Facebook, he
was also able to get other personal details about the CEO, such as his favourite restaurant, sports
team and that he was involved in cancer fundraising. Using this information, he called the CEO and
posed as a fundraiser from a cancer charity the CEO had dealt with in the past. He informed him
they were running a raffle with prizes including tickets to a game played by his favourite sports
team and tickets to his favourite restaurant. The CEO was interested and agreed to let the assessor
send him a PDF with more information on the fundraising and the raffle. The assessor even
managed to get the CEO to tell him which version of Adobe reader he was running. Soon after he
sent the PDF, the CEO opened it, installing malware that enabled access to his machine.vi
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Mitigation advice
Technical solutions such as spam filters, anti-virus software and blocking known phishing/baiting
websites can help prevent some phishing attacks. To some extent blocking the use of non-authorised
USB devices and disabling CD/DVD drives can do the same for baiting attacks. However, a successful
social engineer will attempt to get around these protections. As a result, the best prevention against
social engineering is raising user education and awareness:
Make sure users are aware of the signs of phishing emails – good advice is available from
Cyber Streetwise (https://www.cyberstreetwise.com/common-scams) and Get Safe Online
(https://www.cyberstreetwise.com/common-scams)
If your organisation is a member of CiSP, you can seek advice from other CiSP members on
improving user awareness. See here for more information about joining CiSP:
https://www.cert.gov.uk/cisp/
Consider holding user awareness sessions, potentially as part of training or induction days,
and including a demonstrative penetration test, showing a successful social engineering attack
against an (anonymous) member of the organisation
Encourage users to verify any strange requests or messages by calling the originator on an
already confirmed number
Make users aware of their online presence and caution them to be aware of how much
information they make available on social media
Assess how much information your organisation makes available publicly, and whether any of
this could be used in a social engineering attack
Implement policies that reduce the risk of a successful phishing (e.g. to never send sensitive
information outside your organisation’s network), and give users the confidence they won’t
be punished for sticking to the rules
Encourage users to share their concerns over strange emails or other potential social
engineering events with colleagues and IT support
Ensure as an organisation you inform others of potential social engineering attempts through
CiSP – you may not be the only one being targeted, but you may be the first who realises it’s
a social engineering attack
Prepare for the fact that you are highly likely to eventually be compromised, and ensure you
have in place an incident response and disaster recovery capability
In general, if your organisation adheres to the ‘10 Steps to Cyber Security’9
and the ‘20 Critical
Controls for Cyber Defence’10
you will be in a good place to prevent, respond and recover from
a range of cyber related incidents, including those that involve social engineering
9
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cyber-risk-management-a-board-level-responsibility
10
http://www.cpni.gov.uk/advice/cyber/Critical-controls/