The Art of Deception: Controlling the Human Element of Security

Chapter 2. When Innocuous Information Isn't

What do most people think is the real threat from social engineers? What should you do to be on your guard?

If the goal is to capture some highly valuable prize—say, a vital component of the company's intellectual capital—then perhaps what's needed is, figuratively, just a stronger vault and more heavily armed guards. Right?

But in reality penetrating a company's security often starts with the bad guy obtaining some piece of information or some document that seems so innocent, so everyday and unimportant, that most people in the organization wouldn't see any reason why the item should be protected and restricted.

THE HIDDEN VALUE OF INFORMATION

Much of the seemingly innocuous information in a company's possession is prized by a social engineering attacker because it can play a vital role in his effort to dress himself in a cloak of believability.

Throughout these pages, I'm going to show you how social engineers do what they do by letting you "witness" the attacks for yourself—sometimes presenting the action from the viewpoint of the people being victimized, allowing you to put yourself in their shoes and gauge how you yourself (or maybe one of your employees or coworkers) might have responded. In many cases you'll also experience the same events from the perspective of the social engineer.

The first story looks at a vulnerability in the financial industry.

CREDITCHEX

For a long time, the British put up with a very stuffy banking system. As an ...