SOCIAL ENGINEERING

An attack vector most intricate to tackle!

Abstract
There are several techniques available to a hacker for breaching the Information
Security defenses of an organization. The human approach often termed ‘Social
Engineering’ and is probably the most difficult one to be dealt with. This paper describes
Social Engineering, common techniques used and its impact to the organization. It
discusses various forms of Social Engineering, and how they exploit common human
behavior. The document highlights ways and means to counter these attacks, and also
emphasizes on the importance of policy enforcement and user education in mitigating
the risks posed by Social Engineering.

Prepared by:
Ashish Thapar
CISSP # 106841
 Whitepaper on ‘Social Engineering - An attack vector most intricate to tackle!’

Introduction
As technical attacks on systems have increased, so have numerous technology based
countermeasures being used successfully to thwart them. As a result, attackers are
shifting their focus and are increasingly targeting people through the use of social
engineering methods, often gaining unnoticed access to computer systems and sensitive
data. This is due to the widely accepted fact that People are the ‘weakest links’ in a
security framework. In the era of laws and legislations such as SOX (Sarbanes-Oxley),
GLBA (Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act), HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability
Act) and more, it becomes imperative for everyone to prepare, defend and react to these
attacks.

What is Social Engineering?

Social Engineering is a collection of techniques used to manipulate people into
performing actions or divulging confidential information. While similar to a confidence
trick or a simple fraud, the term typically applies to trickery for information gathering or
computer system access. In most of the cases the attacker never comes face-to-face
with the victims and the latter seldom realize that they have been manipulated.

Why Social Engineering?

Social Engineering uses human error or weakness (i.e. ‘cognitive biases’) to gain access
to any system despite the layers of defensive security controls that may have been
implemented. A hacker may have to invest a lot of time & effort in breaking an access
control system, but he or she will find it much easier in persuading a person to allow
admittance to a secure area or even to disclose confidential information. Despite the
automation of machines and networks today, there is no computer system in the world
that is not dependent on human operators at one point in time or another. Human
interfaces will always be there to provide information and perform maintenance of the
system.

Key Challenges
Despite the humungous security threat posed by Social Engineering, very little is ever
highlighted about it. Primary reason for the lack of discussion about Social Engineering
can be attributed to shame. Most people see Social Engineering as an attack on their
intelligence and wit, and no one wants to be considered ignorant or dumb to have been
duped. This is why Social Engineering gets hidden in the closet as a "taboo" subject,
whereas the fact is that no matter who a person is, he / she may be susceptible to a
Social Engineering attack.

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 Whitepaper on ‘Social Engineering - An attack vector most intricate to tackle!’

Behaviors Vulnerable to Social Engineering Attacks

Social Engineering has always been prevailing in some form or the other; primarily
because of the some very natural facets of human behavior. A social engineer exploits
these behavior patterns to drive the target towards becoming a victim in the attack.
Common human behaviors that are exploited by social engineers are shown in the
image provided hereunder.

Social engineering is still the most effective and probably the easiest method of getting
around security obstacles. Sign of a truly successful social engineer is that, they extract
information without raising any suspicion as to what they are doing.

Reverse Social Engineering on the other hand, describes a situation in which the
target itself makes the initial approach and offers hacker, the information that they want.
Such a scenario may seem unlikely, but figures of authority - particularly technical or
social authority - often receive vital personal information, such as user IDs and
passwords, because they are above suspicion. In this ‘cake-walk’ scenario for a hacker,
the victims themselves reveal information or provide the access, without someone trying
to manipulate them.

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 Whitepaper on ‘Social Engineering - An attack vector most intricate to tackle!’

Categories of Social Engineering

There are two main categories under which all social engineering attempts could be
classified – computer or technology based deception, and purely human based
deception.
The technology-based approach is to deceive the user into believing that he is
interacting with a ‘real’ application or system and get him to provide confidential
information. For instance, the user gets a popup window, informing him that the
computer application has a problem, and the user will need to re-authenticate in order to
proceed. Once the user provides his ID and password on that pop up window, the
damage is done. The hacker who has created the popup now has access to the user’s id
and password and is in a position to access the network and the computer system with
credentials of that user.
Attacks based on non-technical approach are perpetrated purely through deception; i.e.
by taking advantage of the victim’s human behavior weaknesses (as described earlier).
For instance, the attacker impersonates a person having a big authority; places a call to
the help desk, and pretends to be a senior Manager, and says that he / she has
forgotten his password and needs to get it reset right away. The help desk person resets
the password and gives the new password to the person waiting at the other end of the
phone. The attacker now has all the access to perform any malicious activity with the
credentials of actual user.

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 Whitepaper on ‘Social Engineering - An attack vector most intricate to tackle!’

Technical Attack Vectors

Phishing
This term applies to an email appearing to have come from a legitimate business, a
bank, or credit card company requesting "verification" of information and warning of
some dire consequences if it is not done. The letter usually contains a link to a
fraudulent web page that looks legitimate with company logos and content and has a
form that may request username, passwords, card numbers or pin details.

Vishing
It is the practice of leveraging Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology to trick
private personal and financial information from the public for the purpose of financial
reward. This term is a combination of "voice" and phishing. Vishing exploits the public's
trust in landline telephone services, which have traditionally terminated in physical
locations which are known to the telephone company, and associated with a bill-payer.
However, with the advent of VoIP, telephone services may now terminate in computers,
which are far more susceptible to fraudulent attacks than traditional "dumb" telephony
endpoints.

Spam Mails
E-mails that offer friendships, diversion, gifts and various free pictures and information
take advantage of the anonymity and camaraderie of the Internet to plant malicious
code. The employee opens e-mails and attachments through which Trojans, Viruses and
Worms and other uninvited programs find their way into systems and networks. He or
she is motivated to open the message because it appears to offer useful information,
such as security notices or verification of a purchase, promises an entertaining
diversion, such as jokes, gossip, cartoons or photographs, give away something for
nothing, such as music, videos or software downloads. The outcome can range in
severity from nuisance to system slow-down, destruction of entire communication
systems or corruption of records.

Popup Window
The attacker’s rogue program generates a pop up window, saying that the application
connectivity was dropped due to network problems, and now the user needs to reenter
his id and password to continue with his session. The unsuspecting user promptly does
as requested, because he wishes to continue working, and forgets about it. Later it is
heard that there has been an attack on the system, but it never realized that that he /
she was the one who opened the gate!

Interesting Software
In this case the victim is convinced to download and install a very useful program or
application which might be ‘window dressed’ as a CPU performance enhancer, a great

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 Whitepaper on ‘Social Engineering - An attack vector most intricate to tackle!’

system utility or as a crack to an expensive software package. In this case a ‘Spyware’

or a ‘Malware’ (such as a key logger) is installed through a malicious program disguised
as an interesting message or a legitimate program.

Non-Technical Attack Vectors

Pretexting / Impersonation
This is the act of creating and using an invented scenario (the pretext) to persuade a
target to release information or perform an action and is usually done over the
telephone. It's more than a simple lie as it most often involves some prior research or set
up and makes use of pieces of known information (e.g. date of birth, mother’s maiden
name, billing address etc.) to establish legitimacy in the mind of the target.

Dumpster Diving
Seldom would someone think that throwing away junk mail or a routine company
document without shredding could be a risk. However, that is exactly what it could be, if
the junk mail contained personal identification information, or credit card offers that a
‘dumpster diver’ could use in carrying out identity theft. The unsuspecting ‘trash thrower’
could give the Dumpster Diver his break. Company phone books, organization charts
and locations of employees, especially management level employees who can be
impersonated to the hacker’s benefit. Unshredded procedure and policy manuals can
help the hacker to become knowledgeable about the company’s policies and
procedures, and thus be able to convince the victim about their authenticity. The hacker
can use a sheet of paper with the company letterhead to create official looking
correspondence. A hacker can retrieve confidential information from the hard disk of a
computer as there are numerous ways to retrieve information from disks, even if the user
thinks the data has been ‘deleted’ from the disk.

Spying and Eavesdropping

A clever spy can determine the id and password by observing a user typing it in
(Shoulder Surfing). All that needs to be done is to be there behind the user and be able
to see his fingers on the keyboard. If the policy is for the helpdesk to communicate the
password to the user via the phone, then if the hacker can eavesdrop or listen in to the
conversation, the password has been compromised. An infrequent computer user may
even be in the habit of writing the id and password down, thereby providing the spy with
one more avenue to get the information.

Acting as a Technical Expert

This is the case where an intruder pretends to be a support technician working on a
network problem requests the user to let him access the workstation and ‘fix’ the
problem. The unsuspecting user, especially if not technically savvy, will probably not
even ask any questions, or watch while the computer is taken over by the so called
‘technician’. Here the user is trying to be helpful and doing his part in trying to fix a
problem in the company’s network.

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 Whitepaper on ‘Social Engineering - An attack vector most intricate to tackle!’

Support Staff
Here a hacker may pose as a member of a facility support staff and do the trick. A man
dressed like the cleaning crew, walks into the work area, carrying cleaning equipment. In
the process of appearing to clean your desk area, he can snoop around and get valuable
information – such as passwords, or a confidential file that you have forgotten to lock up,
or make a phone call impersonating you from your desk. Or take the case of the
deceptive telephone repairman. The intruder can pose as a repairman and walk up to
your phone and fiddle around with the instrument, and the wiring etc, and in the process
spy on your workplace for valuable information that has been left unsecured.

Hoaxing
A hoax is an attempt to trick an audience into believing that something false is real.
Unlike a fraud or con (which is usually aimed at a single victim and are made for illicit
financial or material gain), a hoax is often perpetrated as a practical joke, to cause
embarrassment, or to provoke social change by making people aware of something. It
also may lead to sudden decisions being taken due to fear of an untoward incident.

Authoritative Voice
The attacker can call up the company’s computer help desk and pretend to have trouble
accessing the system. He / she claims to be in a very big hurry, and needs his password
reset immediately and demands to know the password over the phone. If the attacker
adds credence to his / her story with information that has been picked up from other
social engineering methods, the help desk personnel is all the more likely to believe the
story and do as requested.

Impact of Social Engineering on the Organization

Information Security is crucial for any organization as it has become part and parcel of
‘business as usual’ (BAU). If information security is not given priority, especially in the
current environment with the variety of threats looming in the environment, even a small
lapse in security can bring an organization down. The financial cost could be punitive to
the organization and to the individual. There is also the cost of loss of reputation and
goodwill, which can erode a company’s base in the long run. For instance, a malicious
individual can get access to credit card information that an online vendor obtains from
customers. Once the customers find out that their credit information has been
compromised, they will not want to do any more business with that vendor, as they
would consider that site to be insecure. They could also initiate lawsuits against the
company that will lower the reputation of the company and turn away prospective or
existing clientele. Over the time, experts have come to the conclusion that despite the
impression of the hacker being an outsider wanting to get ‘in’, the majority of violations
are caused by either disgruntled employees or non-employees who have legitimate
system access because of their job in the organization. In short, companies spend
billions of dollars every year in improving hardware and software in order to block
malicious attacks. But all of this is an effort in vain if end users are not adequately
educated and they good security practices are not being followed.

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 Whitepaper on ‘Social Engineering - An attack vector most intricate to tackle!’

Countermeasures & Safeguards

Social engineering attacks are one of the hardest threats to defend against because they
involve the ‘human’ element, which in itself is quite unpredictable. Nevertheless, there
are some measures which can certainly bring the risk associated with social engineering
to acceptable levels. While attacks on human judgment are immune to even the best of
security defense systems, companies can mitigate the risk of social engineering with an
active security culture throughout the organization that keeps on evolving as the threat
landscape changes.

Well Documented Security Policy

A well-documented and accessible Security Policy, associated standards and guidelines
form the foundation of a good security strategy. The policy should clearly document in
simple terms, its scope and content in each area that it applies to. Along with each policy
should be specified, the standards and guidelines to be followed in order to comply with
the policy. Generally, a policy should contain policy statements on the domains such as
following:
• Acceptable usage policy - for acceptable business usage of email, computer
systems, telephone, network etc.
• Information classification and handling – for identifying critical information assets
and associated handling instructions

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 Whitepaper on ‘Social Engineering - An attack vector most intricate to tackle!’

• Personnel security – screening prospective employees, contractors to ensure

that they do not pose a security threat to the organization, if employed
• Physical security – to secure the facility from unauthorized physical access with
the help of sign in procedures, electronic and biometric security devices etc.
• Information access control – password usage and guidelines for generating
secure passwords, access authorization and accountability procedures, securing
remote access via modems etc. Automated password reset and synchronization
tools can lift the responsibility of managing passwords from tech support and the
help desk, without placing an undo burden on end users.
• Protection from viruses – to secure the systems and information from viruses and
similar threats
• Information security awareness training – to ensure that employees are kept
informed of threats and counter measures and their responsibilities in securing
company’s assets
• Compliance monitoring – to continually ensure that the security policy is being
complied with.

Risk Assessment
Risk Assessment is a systematic approach that helps management in understanding the
risk factors that may adversely affect the organization’s operational capabilities. It also
helps in making ‘informed decisions’ about the extent of actions required to mitigate the
risk. It involves prioritizing of Information Assets on the basis of risk associated with
them. This helps in identification of most critical assets in the organization and focusing
organization’s energy and effort in protecting the same. If risk assessment is effectively
carried out in an organization, the controls and safety procedures shall protect the most
crucial asset against attacks.

Awareness and Education

Building awareness amongst users about the common techniques employed and
behaviors targeted by a social engineer is an important part of the defense strategy.
Educating employees on the damage done by such theft is also a must. There is no
substitute for a good awareness campaign for implementing the ‘social engineering’
elements of a security policy. The elements of an awareness campaign depend on how
the information is communicated to staff within the company. The more one reinforces
the caution messages within the policies, the more successful is their implementation.
The best way to create such awareness in a general non-security professional is through
real life examples of companies have been hacked because of insider information, or
even just negligence and ignorance on an employee’s part.

Audits and Compliance

Having created the policy and educated the user is not enough, if no one conforms to
the policy. Hence there is a need to audit the usage across the enterprise. For example,
when a project is going through quality assurance, it should also go through security

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 Whitepaper on ‘Social Engineering - An attack vector most intricate to tackle!’

policy compliance verification. Audit procedures must be in place, to verify for example
that the help desk person is not communicating passwords over the phone or via
unencrypted email. Periodically Managers should review the access of their employees.
Security audits should confirm that employees who no longer need access do not have
access. Access points such as entry doors etc should be routinely monitored. This will
ensure that employees are complying with policy regarding access to secured locations.
Employee workspaces should undergo random inspection to ensure that confidential
material is always secured in locked cabinets. Workstations should be locked down and
password protected screensavers should be in use.

Identity Management
It is important for organizations to have a unique identifier for each employee. This is
often used as their ID to access all computer systems, and also as the key identifier for
the individual in the organization. However, keeping the base for personnel identification
distinct from that used for computer systems can mitigate this risk. It may lead to some
additional work, but it will surely help to limit the damage from an attack.

Operating Procedures
Standard operating procedures, especially those related to providing security access or
clearance, should have a cross verification or ‘call back’ step before the request is
granted. This will reduce the number of times the hacker can get away with trying to
impersonate a legitimate user.

Security Incident Management

When a social engineering attack occurs, make sure that the service desk staff knows
how to manage the incident. Each incident provides fresh inputs for an ongoing review of
security within the incident response model. To manage an incident, service desk staff
must have a robust incident-reporting protocol that records the following information:
• Target name
• Target department
• Date
• Attack vector
• Attack description
• Attack outcome
• Attack effect
• Recommendations
By recording incidents, it is possible to identify patterns and possibly preempt further
attacks.

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 Whitepaper on ‘Social Engineering - An attack vector most intricate to tackle!’

Insurance Protection
Finally, an organization can buy insurance against security attacks. However, most
insurers will look for company policies and procedures that work towards reducing the
threat of attacks. Generally, insurers are not so much bothered with the security
products an organization is using to mitigate attacks as compared to the focus on
employee awareness, logical, physical & administrative access controls and security
policies put in place.

References:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/midsizebusiness/topics/complianceandpolicie
s/socialengineeringthreats.mspx

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_engineering_%28security%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumpster_diving

http://www.cisco.com/web/about/security/intelligence/mysdn-social-engineering.html

http://www.windowsecurity.com/articles/Social_Engineers.html

http://www.gartner.com/gc/webletter/security/issue1/article1.html

www.cert-in.org.in

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