Penetration Testing and Network Defense

Chapter 4. Performing Social Engineering

Only two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.

—Albert Einstein

InfoSecurity Europe 2004 performed a survey of office workers in London. According to a ZDNet article published on April 20, 2004, their survey discovered that three-quarters of the office workers surveyed were willing to reveal their network-access password in exchange for a chocolate bar.

This survey illustrates how easy it is to gain access to networks without touching a single piece of equipment. At the end of the day, no matter how much encryption and security technology you have implemented, a network is never completely secure. You can never get rid of the weakest link—the human factor. ...