Five things you need to know about Social Engineering

By Robert McMillan
IDG News Service
December 16, 2009

SOCIAL ENGINEERING IS GROWING UP. Social engineering, the act of
tricking people into giving up sensitive information, is nothing new.
Convicted hacker Kevin Mitnick made a name for himself by cold-calling
staffers at major U.S. companies and talking them into giving him
information. But today's criminals are having a heyday using e-mail and
social networks. A well-written phishing message or virus-laden spam
campaign is a cheap, effective way for criminals to get the data they
need.

TARGETED ATTACKS ARE ON THE RISE. Northrop Grumman recently reported
that China was "likely" stealing data from the United States in a "long-
term, sophisticated network exploitation campaign." Security experts
have noticed criminals were "spear phishing"--getting Trojan horse
programs to run on a victim's computer by using carefully crafted e-mail
messages. Used to steal intellectual property and state secrets, spear
phishing is now everywhere.

CASTING A BROAD NET PAYS OFF TOO. Less discriminating criminals cast a
wider net with their attacks. They pick e-mail subjects everybody's
interested in: a message from the IRS, or even "a photo of you." The
more victims who click links and install the bad guy's software, the
more money the criminals make. Right now, "they're doing it with
messaging that is extremely broad," says Gary Warner, director of
research in computer forensics at the University of Alabama at
Birmingham.
FREE STUFF CAN BE COSTLY. Attackers love to tempt people with freebies, security experts say. "The bait that works best is a popular device," says Sherri Davidoff, a penetration tester hired to see if she can break into corporate networks. One of Davidoff's most successful techniques: a fake employee survey. Victims fill it out thinking they'll qualify to win an iPod if they hand over sensitive information. "Thirty to 35 percent will enter their usernames and passwords to get the iPhone," she says.

PEOPLE TRUST THEIR (HACKED) FRIENDS. That trust allowed the Koobface worm to spread throughout Facebook and led to a rash of direct-message attacks on Twitter too. It's all part of the next round of socially-engineered attacks, says Steve Santorelli, formerly a Scotland Yard detective and now director of global outreach at Team Cymru. A few years ago hackers were more focused on the quality of their code. Now, he says, "they are putting an equal effort into social engineering."