Experts Hack Power Grid in Less Than a Day 302
bednarz writes "Cracking a power company network and gaining access that could shut down the grid is simple, a security expert told an RSA audience, and he has done so in less than a day. Ira Winkler, a penetration-testing consultant, says he and a team of other experts took a day to set up attack tools they needed then launched their attack, which paired social engineering with corrupting browsers on a power company's desktops. By the end of a full day of the attack, they had taken over several machines at the unnamed power company, giving the team the ability to hack into the control network overseeing power production and distribution."
I'm Shocked! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I'm Shocked! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Since OTT security costs OTT money I think they should stick with sane security checks, and not worry about headline grabbing pranks like these
Here is a "sane" security measure (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Here is a "sane" security measure (Score:5, Insightful)
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Doesn't make it right. I'm not defending, just pointing out the obvious reason.
Re:Here is a "sane" security measure (Score:4, Insightful)
Cost.
In a lot of cases, you have the power company desktops on the Internet and they have their own lan for desktops etc.
But then those computers CAN access the critical systems.
Then they slap a firewall or VPN inbetween the desktops and the critical systems... wow, it's magically OFF THE INTERNETS!
If you disconnect the two LANS, you're much more secure, but then Lazy McFatass has to WALK to a boring green screen to manage it.
It's much cheaper and employee friendly to just let these people access the secure systems from their desktop, using a remote terminal. Very sad, but true... and very risky.
Remember, it was poor desktop security and a WINDOWS VIRUS that knocked out the US Northeast power grid some 5 or 6 years ago.
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Re:Here is a "sane" security measure (Score:4, Funny)
Unnecessary:The Cylons have been gone 40 years now (Score:3, Funny)
Commander Adama: "It's an integrated compter network, and I will not have it
aboard this ship!"
Secretary Rosalyn: "I heard you're one of those people... you're actually
afraid of computers."
Commander Adama: "No... there are many computers on this ship. But they're
not networked!"
Secretary Rosalyn: "A computerized network would simply make it faster and
easier for the teacher's to be able to teach..."
Commander Adama: "Let me explain something to you...
Commander Adama: "... many good men and women lost their lives aboard this
ship, because someone wanted a faster computer to make life easier. I'm
sorry that I'm inconveniencing you or the teachers, but I will not allow...
a network computerized system to be placed on this ship while I'm in
command. Is that clear?"
Not Usually connected (Score:2)
The other one I worked for had a wal-mart non-wireless router for the internet. All the control equipment was hooked up to redundant dedicated switches. The control computers were not connected to the internet router in any way.
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Re:I'm Shocked! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I'm Shocked! (Score:4, Informative)
Here's the first clue:
Public utilities are public! They're not armed fortresses. They were originally created to be open institutions where people could see what is going on. They're supposed to share data and cooperate with each other.
Here's the second clue:
There are many who need the information about the utility's performance to do their day to day jobs. The volumes of information and the volumes of regulatory agencies, and other groups they need to inform increase every day. Securing these connections isn't for the faint of heart. I say this as a member of ISA-99, the international standards body for SCADA security.
That said, most companies have secured the distribution systems. However, these are highly customized systems. You can't bolt security on them after the fact. Replacing them is nothing like replacing or upgrading an information system. There is this little problem known as system validation. It is extremely expensive. Furthermore, the standards for securing these systems are still very much in development (I'm on one of those standards committees too).
SCADA systems are in the Ford Model T days. You want to bolt a seat-belt and airbags to it. These things may help, but if you really want things to be secure, we need to rethink the entire infrastructure. And that will not be cheap...
"Public" utilities (Score:3, Informative)
You cannot just stroll into a nuclear plant to see how things work.
After your smug and false assertion that you can, everything else you have to say, no matter how "insightful" is may seem to some, is suspect.
Re:I'm Shocked! (Score:4, Informative)
The utility business has three tactical concerns: Safety, Availability, and Security --in that order of priority.
Utilities have been running for decades on old infrastructure. Using SCADA, we're managing the existing capacity in the original infrastructures built by our parents and grandparents. They invested monies that in today's economy would make your utility bills look ridiculously small.
Utilities aren't building infrastructure because the rate payers don't know there is a problem with it. Even when they do know, they may not realize how much it is going to cost to really build in the kind of capacity that previous generations were willing to commit to.
No, instead, we get leaders who slash staff, offer early buy outs, and then discover they don't have anyone who knows where anything is or how it works. Realizing they don't know how to hire people who know what they're doing, because they don't know what to look for, they contract the whole thing out to some private company that in theory could run a utility, but in practice is also understaffed.
And against that backdrop you'd have us invest in a tertiary concern called security? I mean, we are all interested, but there are higher priorities right now.
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After the '03 outage it made me wonder how safe all those high-rise electrical towers that run across the country are. A stick of dynamite on a tower itself, or even just a few shots with a rifle to the wires attached. Would just one tower lead to another blackout - scary considering those towers are of course everywhere.
I've wondered over the years what someone with a high powered rifle taking potshots at oil/propane/liquid hydrogen tankers on the interstates would do. Mainly this crosses my mind while d
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I've wondered over the years what someone with a high powered rifle taking potshots at oil/propane/liquid hydrogen tankers on the interstates would do. Mainly this crosses my mind while driving alongside one of them and having seen too many Hollywood movies with things blowing up.
Don't you watch Mythbusters? They proved you can't just go blowing up canisters in huge firey explosions with rifles. It takes a fair bit of explosives to do that.
Now where did I leave that RPG...? :)
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same deal as tossing a metallic rod across some terminals in a switching station.
Disrupting our power system physically is more difficult and would create more isolated outages than if you have access to the computer.
You'd have to choose your target carefully as the high voltage distribution lines tend to be redundant, and in many cases t
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Tracers apparently pass through smaller tanks too quickly to ignite anything; they tried that on the Mythbusters show. Also, to get ignition, you need fire, fuel and oxygen. Sticking a fire suddenly into the middle of a fuel tank is just going to heat the fuel up a bit without the oxygen.
Re:I'm Shocked! (Score:5, Insightful)
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DANGER WILL ROBINSON!
CRITICAL FAILURE IS IMMINENT, YOU MUST SHUT DOWN THE REACTOR IMMEDIATELY
Please enter password:
Password is incorrect!
Password is incorrect!
Password is incorrect!
You have been locked out for 10 minutes.
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Knowing how Sigfreid does a card trick does not mean you won't be dumbfounded when Roy pulls a monkey out of his arse. I'm not saying education is worthless but even the process of educating staff on various common 'tricks', is in itself, a target for social engineering.
"Authorization? How about the United States FUCKING government? Lose the grid, or you lose your job." - Special Agent Johnson - Die Hard movie.
Re:I'm Shocked! (Score:4, Insightful)
Seperation of privileges is the best method. Social engineering tends to work because people who have privileges lack certain information and/or lack authority in the role of the privileges they have.
If you have full authority in your role and personally know everyone who is involved in your role then you can't be easily tricked by people outside your role in to doing things.
This requires education and a proper company structure, which requires good smart people in management.
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It looks to me like having ridiculously *weak* security every step of the way is what made it so easy for these social engineers to be effective. Countering this by saying "well yeah, but what are we supposed to do, they can break it anyway!!" is not a valid argument, IMO.
Of course it will always be possible if someone is really determined
Re:I'm Shocked! (Score:4, Informative)
The computer systems that control the grid are extremely secure. So secure in fact, they do not HAVE a network connection outside of their own server to server interaction.
The mainframes, UNIX systems, and other systems that operate the switcing grid are isolated in a section of the building that even their own network engineers can not enter without being padded down to ensure they carry no computer media of any kind.
When media does need to be brought in, say to patch the OS on a machine for a bug, or to update the backup server software, the media for that must pass through a several step security scan, including scans by not less than 3 AV applications, repeated on not less than 3 different PCs. All install media for machines in that area are kept in that area, seperate from all other company media.
You wouldn't believe the process we had to go through to bring a new backup system in there...
These systems are so isolated it is virtually impossible to infect them.
On the other hand, the PCs connected to the billing systems, yes, they could be infected. These systems however are backed up in many ways, and even if they had to roll back the database a few days, all they'd have to do is correlate the accounting records with meter readings, and they'll know exactly how much everyone owes or paid. They might have to type a few customer change orders back into the system, but all that is in hard copy anyway... It would be an inconvenience, but not that big of one. Of course, the billing system is only accessible via terminal session from PCs on a specific VLAN that are not used for any other purposes (no web browser, document creation, etc), so infecting it is not exactly easy, and I doubt is could be done with a bot without intimate network design knowledge, a few passwords, and a lot of attempts. It would have to be a targeted hack.
This particular power company is a locally owned co-op, small time company. If they can implement security like this, I'm sure others do as well.
I imaging the power grid itself, not so much the systems controlling them, could somehow be hacked, or fooled with conflicting signals that could cause issues, but I seriously doubt anyone let these people try...
Re:I'm Shocked! (Score:5, Funny)
*unplugs cat-5 from firewall between power control computer and local intranet*
Wait, you were saying something about prevention and deterrence and I rudely interrupted. Please, carry on.
Re:I'm Shocked! (Score:5, Funny)
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Just the same, bouncers outside a club don't prevent entry, they just deter brute forcing the door. If you really wanted to get in the club in a hurry you could walk up with a gun, mow them down, and walk in - wouldn't even have to break stride.
Umm, yea, try that in a club in a real city, the bouncers will have bullet proof vests, there will be double barriers in front of the club that you have to jump over , by which time the bouncers will have retreated inside, closed the shutters and radioed for the police who are only 2 or 3 streets away and will be getting the submachines guns out of the boot of thier car. Armed police would be there in about 2 minutes to gun you down.
Clubs in citys with gang problems usualy have extremly well armoured e
Is everything on the internet? (Score:3, Insightful)
Realistically, no part of a nations critical infrastructure should be networked (other than the internet itself). That seems pretty obvious.
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Re:Is everything on the internet? (Score:4, Informative)
"Individual desktops have Internet access and access to business servers as well as the SCADA network, making the control systems subject to Internet threats."
Re:Is everything on the internet? (Score:5, Informative)
In an ideal world, they'd have two PCs on each desktop. One on the internet, one on the SCADA network. The two should never be connected. That's how the military is suppoesd to do it between different levels of their networks (the two different levels are never to be connected).
But that costs you twice as much, and isn't convenient. But you'd never have a security breach.
Oh, and they buy and sell power over the internet between different power companies, so right there is a reason you'd need some SCADA system connected with internet access (but you could have those systems very, very locked down as to what and how they can access between things).
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But safer than that would be a way to have a DMZ storage system (not internet DMZ, but DMZ between internal Internet-access PCs and SCADA system PCs) that each different type of PC can drop data off in, but t
Re:Is everything on the internet? (Score:5, Interesting)
So, sure, everybody has two desktops.. one for internal one for everything else. It was great in theory - really stupid in practice. Just doesn't work.
Reality is - there is an expectation that data from outside is available inside. In the power company case it might be everything from the latest gas pricing information to weather reports to who knows what else - and so in 'getting things done' this will inevitably require connections between the outside and the inside.
So, as a result of this 'blanket policy' contrasting with the 'real world' people would circumvent the rule - but do it in stupid, sneaky ways -- for example in one data center there was, literally, an infrared tunnel between two computers -- "see, they are not 'physically connected' !!"
It would've made a lot more sense to supply a safe, heavily controlled/monitored firewall that connects outside to inside and let the network security people manage it. Otherwise your choices are (1.) actually enforece the rule and totally cripple the effectiveness of the internal system (with the result that nothing of any importance gets put there) or (2.) really lame hacks pretending to be secure and working around the blanket rule, when in actual fact they are invisible bridges that the network ops guys don't know about.
I saw the alternative 2. in real world practice. Lets consider option 1. - if they really did manage to make the SCADA network totally seperate **and enforce that**. In that case you'd probably just end up with the forecasting/power-station-scheduling app running on the 'outside' network - and just the final 'implement it' step on the internal SCADA. Since the scheduling app is the one where the real decisions are made - hacking into that would let you send signals and information that would look relatively harmless but would still, in effect shut down the power grid. You are still sending information - in this case mediated by human brains, but not in a way that the human brain can easily understand because its low level commands (turn this up, turn that down) - that could very effectively mess up the voltage balance or frequency timing or whatever, and causing rolling blackouts and thus achieving the same aim of shutting down the power grid. There is information flowing from outside to inside - whether it is via human or machine.
Security through dis-connectivity is a dangerous myth in most cases. In some cases, say military situations where you are willing to absorb the huge cost to re-implementing a complete replacement for just about every dang thing you might need on the inside (e.g. weather data, or radar data, say) then it may make sense. In just about every realistic corporate case - even power companies - its likely to only cause people to take their eye off the ball of implementing real security and proper firewalls etc.
cripple the internal network? (Score:3, Interesting)
Security through dis-connectivity is a dangerous myth in most cases. In some cases, say military situations where you are willing to absorb the huge cost to re-implementing a complete replacement for just about every dang thing you might need on the inside (e.g. weather data, or radar data, say) then it may make sense. In just about every realistic corporate case - even power companies - its likely to only cause people to take their eye off the ball of implementing real security and proper firewalls etc.
You make a good point here, but I'd argue that, for National Infrastructure Issues (including the power grid), the same security expected of the military should be required. These systems are just as critical. One of the primary diffrentiators between the modern world and the third world is the ability to provide reliable utilities. If the grid went down for any length of time on a national scale.. umm.. it would be a b
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ATA over Ethernet is one such route, I'm sure there are more.
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Expensive? Generally speaking the we have our own weather people and equipment. We'll often share data(two doppler radars are better than one), but half the data is coming from military equipment in the first place.
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The problem, as usual, is Windows. If you RTFA, they just set up a site and emailed the power station guys that there was a change to their pensions or health benefits, for more information.... so they clicked on the link and were pwned immediately. No specifics, but does anyone doubt this was Internet Explorer running on Windows?
Solution: Others have pointed out the need to transfer information routinely via the Internet. How about the desktops run Ubuntu, or OSX or ANYTHING e
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Re:Is everything on the internet? (Score:4, Informative)
In the power plants I have worked in (mostly gas turbine, only one nuclear), there was not any type of internet access from PC's on the controls network. For the most part these systems only ran some form of HMI software (WW, RS, WESstation, whatever) and occasionally something like MS Word or Excel for shift pass-down notes. Sure they had a browser (on the Windows systems) but it wouldn't get them anywhere because there was only one system that had any level of access to both the business intranet and the controls systems. This system (data historian) could only receive communications from the controls side (which had interface software that knew how to contact the historian) and communicates in a proprietary protocol.
Now, as far as the corporate office is concerned, pencil and paper are good enough to keep track of which plants are running which generators, which plants have which generators down for minors or majors, and which plants have generators idling (running with no load at very low levels, not on the grid - cheaper to idle them in most cases then to shut them down). However, in the case of at least one company I worked for, their historian had an interface that pushed data back to a corporate historian, then some reports and so on would run at corporate that drew data from the corporate historian and reported machine statuses, load level, etc up to the last few seconds. This is again using the same proprietary protocol (or heck, maybe a different one).
I don't know what power company this article is about, only that I didn't work there and didn't do any type of integration for them. Whoever setup their infrastructure hopefully learned a lesson and will do it right next time.
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I have Excel plugins for listing data from, I guess, 30,000 sensors on each of the dozen plants we operate. Data goes back years. I'm not special; anyone with a day's training can access the data.
I have graphical programs for displaying this data. All live. All customisable.
I cannot operate the plant from here, nor do I know of anyone else that can from thei
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The short answer is: "Boss is cheap and employees will quit if they can't watch YouTube in one window as they watch the grid in the other."
Of course, they could be completely incompetant and simply be using the internet this way so they can monitor things from outside the building..
Don't do this for real. (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.google.com/search?q=%40ercot.com&btnG=Search&hl=en&safe=off&rlz=1B3GGGL_enUS264US264 [google.com]
That's a search for "@ercot.com", and if you don't know, ERCOT runs the Texas power grid market. There's another one for the East grid, and another for the West. You can find them yourself.
Oops. (Score:5, Insightful)
Even something as simple as opening a few junctions could cause fireworks..take a look at some online videos about 'opening hot' for example..now imagine if that arc caught other pieces of equipment because the line was still energized.
Simply put, the power industry needs to step up to the plate and harden both their network infrastructure and their meatspace infrastructure against malicious attack.
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The funny thing is that building for safety would build for economy on the long run. A good example is nature. We are fairly resistant systems and we wouldn't have survived if not for it.
Re:Oops. (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd argue that building for safety is right up there, perhaps before economy even.
It's just that the power company's idea of safety != producing, delivery 100% of the time.
Electricity itself is dangerous. So the power companies do all sorts of things like install breakers to shut off the power if a potentially dangerous situation is detected. First is protect human life*, second is the expensive equipment. A fuse is cheap, even if it costs $100 because it's designed for 18KV@1KA compared to a switching station transformer.
Anyways, on 'possibly lives from extended loss of power.'
Anybody dependant on electricity for life should already have backups as necessary. If you're dependant on electricity to power a charger for your artificial heart, dialysis machine, breathing assistance device**, or whatever, you should have a generator, battery backup, whatever's needed. I mean, the way power delivery goes, local events can take out power to a house/business fairly easily, and are fairly common.
I think one guy with a medical problem requiring frequent access to electricity had the house hookup, a backup generator, and a 12V adaptar for cars.
*If nothing else, dead people tend to be REALLY expensive.
**Though I imagine simple pressurized O2 and an appropriately selected mechanical valve system should be able to eliminate the need for electricity for a good while.
penetration-testing? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:penetration-testing? (Score:4, Funny)
In penetration testing, the successful applicant hires himself.
Re:penetration-testing? (Score:5, Funny)
Hey Baby, have you been with an professional penetrator before?
Pfft.. (Score:5, Funny)
In Leather
Call me paranoid, (Score:3, Informative)
By the power of Grayskull... (Score:5, Funny)
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Best Job Ever (Score:5, Funny)
Ira Winkler? (Score:5, Interesting)
http://attrition.org/errata/charlatan.html#winkler [attrition.org]
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http://attrition.org/errata/charlatan.html#winkler [attrition.org]
Security Measures (Score:5, Insightful)
I should hope that critical things like "TURN THE WHOLE POWER GRID OFF" are not even on a secure server. They should be on terminals that are not even connected to the Internet, much less networked to anywhere else in the building.
It's awfully difficult to hack something when it isn't connected to the Net. Even simple security like multiple checkpoints, a keycard, and several biometric scans (as well as regular, and often, virus and spyware scans) to get to a secure terminal would go well towards protecting the security of our power networks. Hell, post a guard nearby who isn't incompetent.
The one thing Social Engineers/Con Men fear most is challenges - and by challenges, I mean challenges of authority. PROVE you are who you say you are. Check their records against a secure terminal or a hard copy of an employee roster. If anything is remotely fishy, no matter how "important" they say the work is, don't let them past you.
Vigilance is the key, and far too many critical parts of our infrastructure still fail at it to this day.
Re:Security Measures (Score:5, Interesting)
How would you like it if the hackers got into the grid control system and told the IP motors that control the floodgates on the big dams to open all the way, and then send them into a tizzy that burns them out, so they can't be used to shut the gates? How much damage would the downstream flooding cause?
Or how about the test the DHS did, where they gave a generator a command to generate power out of phase with the network, causing it to physically self-destruct? It only takes a few tings like this to screw up the country big-time! And it doesn't have to be done on site, it can be comfortably done from the safety and security of your ChiCom hacker network (they've been walking all over our networks for years) or your zombie bot-net.
I've been sounding the alarm on this for years, (although many others have been doing a far better job, don't want to take credit for others work) and finally the industry is responding. It will take billions to correct it in the US, Europe and Far East, while some poor countries don't have the financial means to do it at all.
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How would you like it if the hackers got into the grid control system and told the IP motors that control the floodgates on the big dams to open all the way, and then send them into a tizzy that burns them out, so they can't be used to shut the gates? How much damage would the downstream flooding cause?
Yeah, no kidding. Imagine what would happen if that occured with the Three Gorges Dam [wikipedia.org] in China... Woot, 39,300,000,000 cubic metres of water suddenly dropped on your cities! ...
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Unfortunately it is never practical to maintain an air gap.
Bullshit. I've worked at several MAJOR data centers with fully integrated Building Automation Systems which were completely separated from the companies' intranets and from the internet. You must bear in mind that this type of security protects BOTH sides. That is, in addition to protecting the B.A.S./SCADA system from outside attack directly, it also prevents someone from being able to access the SCADA system and from there, hack into corporate intranets.
If they really wanted to protect the grid... (Score:3, Interesting)
Why the hell would someone go to all the effort mucking around with computers and hacking and leaving evidence everywhere when they could just go buy a gas axe from the local hardware store and knockdown a few of the big towers and cause havoc for days...and have about 0% of getting caught to top it off.
I was 4wding up in the highcountry near my city the other weekend, driving along the maintenance tracks for the big lines that run from the hydro electricty plant to the city. A gas axe to a few of the supports and you could cut power to the city in an hour. Choose the right towers, remote and hard to get to and it could be out for days. The big lines run through the rugged and isolated mountains for about 100kms (60miles)...good luck stopping someone motivated doing that.
And yet, no one ever has..perhaps, just perhaps there isn't bogey men trying to get us hiding around ever corner?
These 'security experts' that seem to be cropping up left, right and centre these days crying about how unsafe and insecure everything is seem to be little more than a new incarnation of snake oil salesmen.
Rediculous.
Thats nothing (Score:2)
How exactly did they do it? (Score:2)
Machines run Windows (Score:4, Informative)
Seperate networks? (Score:4, Insightful)
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yeah, where's the blackout (Score:2)
if you didn't actually take down the grid, how do you know with absolute certainty that you could have finished the job?
From TFA, this is what we have:
the server downloaded malware that enabled the team to take command of the machines. "Then we had full system control," Winkler says
sure, buddy. Right. How did you know? What did you try to do? What was the last step where you decided NOT to press "Enter"?
I'll wait until someone actually has the gonads to bring down the system, and then use the "I told you so" argument to prevent being totally raped by the
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They might see the full interface that a full admin might have, but if the system was even half-decently-designed, the developers/designers would probably attempt to make it so sitting down at one of the control machines doesn't just give you the immediate ability to shut down everything...
Well... (Score:2)
So the Fuck What? (Score:5, Funny)
You turn the power off, you take away the porn, the air conditioning for the cold beer, the TV to distract you from your bullshit. You force men to deal with that and I predict a couple hundred thousand men rabidly searching for whoever was responsible for THAT.
Bin Laden has not been found yet, the idiot that takes out the power grid will be found in 30 minutes.....
I don't doubt it at all. (Score:2)
When you think about it for a moment, these kind of key things could be successfully attacked and shut down no problem. It's never been otherwise. There are people that just love to break into systems, and it's obvious that some of those people inevitably have far more destructive intentions than simply "pen
Hilarious editorial problem (Score:3, Funny)
From the article: "In addition to consulting, Winkler is author of the books Spies Among Us and Zen and the Art of Information Security."
(italics in the original)
Spies Among Us and Zen? Can't wait to read that. And: "Hi, I'm Art. Art of Information Security." Or maybe that is a coffee-table book of famous paintings reimagined through security logs, Matrix-style.
Call us when you get into the billing system... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I hate the term "Social Engineering" (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:I hate the term "Social Engineering" (Score:5, Insightful)
Lying is telling a falsehood as truth.
Scamming is offering something but never following up, or following up with less than was promised (e.g. bait and switch or fake companies that run off with money).
There's big differences in those definitions.
The most obvious example I know of is social engineering with USB pen drives. A penetration testing company was asked to test corporate security. They did it by leaving a number of USB pen drives around the office. With no lying or scamming, people took the drives, wondered whose it was, plugged it into the computer, and the drive automatically grabbed some data. At the end of the exercise the pen. testers listed the names of people who had connected the drives, even when its origin was unknown. No lying or scamming was involved, but there was a social norm that they exploited as social engineering, which is that people will look to see what is on it to see if they know whose it is. If it had been a virus/trojan then that simple social engineering could have taken down the network, been pumping out spam, or allowed someone access via a back door.
Re:I hate the term "Social Engineering" (Score:5, Insightful)
That is probably the ONLY example I've seen that DOESN'T involve lying or scamming. Usually 'social engineering' refers to calling in to the receptionist, posing as the IT helpdesk, or something else, and then have them tell you their passwords...or type 'arcane things into a command line'...or run the attachment in an email you send them...and they do it without a 2nd thought. And that, would be a clear case of 'lying' or even 'scamming'.
Phishing sites, email spam from 'John' that says "Check out our Vacation Photos", etc also fall under the wide umbrella of 'social engineering'.
Re:I hate the term "Social Engineering" (Score:5, Insightful)
Similarly, wearing a fluorescent jacket and working on an exchange box or other equipment isn't lying or scamming anyone, but through social engineering and societal training you'll get away with what you're doing because people go "oh, he's a contractor, he must be doing some contract work".
Ditto for walking in to buildings - we've got guards at the main gates, but once you're in then you can get in to a lot of buildings without question just by looking like you belong and having something pass-like hung around your neck. You're using people's social expectations of "he is on site, has a pass and knows what he is doing so must be allowed here" to get you in to places where your swipe card won't work.
Re:I hate the term "Social Engineering" (Score:5, Insightful)
Lying by omission is when an important fact is omitted, deliberately leaving another person with a misconception. This includes failures to correct pre-existing misconceptions. One may by careful speaking contrive to give correct but only partial answers to questions.
Even my 4 year old has no difficulty understanding that weaseling like this is a form of lying.
I agree you can engage in social engineering without lying, but its an important and ubiquitous tool of the trade.
As for your uniformed workers, while they don't by definition have to communicate with anyone, odds are they will. And odds are they'll at the very least have a prepared lie to go along with their outfit. Whether or not they use it. Hell, even the guys that went around leaving usb drives probably had a cover story in case someone had confronted them. "I'm just returning it." or "Its got some marketing materials for the new yadda yadda..." or whatever.
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Besides, are you actually lying when you only tell truths and never say a false word? It is deceit by omission because you're giving a wrong impression by missing out information, but is that lying or is it just deceit as no untruth has been spoken?
Re:I hate the term "Social Engineering" (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I hate the term "Social Engineering" (Score:5, Insightful)
In order to immunize you from certain diseases a doctor injects you with a vaccine, which is pretty much the same thing but unable to do real harm. once your body knows what the threat is, it can react appropriately when it encounters the actual thing.
Take it a step farther (Score:3, Funny)
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Of course this works only in Windows! There you have another reason to use a Mac or Linux. Why, oh WHY does MS program their OS to automatically run whatever crap is on a data storage device?
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The problem with them is that they do not denote the subject at hand with the precision required in a serious discussion of security.
Sure, lying and scamming may tools of social engineering, but there are social engineering attacks that do not use those, and there are plenty of lies and scams that do not qualify as social engineering.
I.e. there is an overlap but not congruence. Draw your own Venn diagram if you have to.
They are simply different
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No-one was ever caught.
Cops probably didn't have much to go on, really.
That's a great story. Delivery could use a little work though.
die hard (Score:4, Funny)
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Bah... If you can't do it in under a minute while a gorgeous girl is <ahem> distracting you and John Travolta is holding a gun to your head, you're no-one.