{"id":381,"date":"2009-08-27T07:30:33","date_gmt":"2009-08-27T14:30:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.cosaint.net\/?p=381"},"modified":"2023-02-27T10:12:58","modified_gmt":"2023-02-27T10:12:58","slug":"social-engineering-attacks-still-alive-and-well","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.empowerelearning.com\/blog\/social-engineering-attacks-still-alive-and-well\/","title":{"rendered":"Social Engineering Attacks Still Alive and Well"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-595\" title=\"telephone\" src=\"https:\/\/www.empowerbpo.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/08\/telephone1.gif\" alt=\"telephone\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.empowerelearning.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/08\/telephone1.gif 150w, https:\/\/www.empowerelearning.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/08\/telephone1-100x100.gif 100w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnet.com\/news\/hacker-mitnick-may-sue-at-t-over-data-breach\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">CNET News<\/a> recently reported that the AT&amp;T account of convicted hacker turned security consultant <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Kevin_Mitnick\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Kevin Mitnick<\/a> had been breached for the second time.<\/p>\n<p>Reportedly, the hacker(s) simply called a representative at an AT&amp;T store in Idaho and asked them to do a password reset. They then posted Kevin&#8217;s personal details to the Internet.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Aside from the fact that there&#8217;s a certain irony in the fact that the hacker(s) used simple <a href=\"https:\/\/www.empowerelearning.com\/courses\/social-engineering\/\">social engineering<\/a> techniques similar to the techniques that resulted in Kevin&#8217;s conviction and 5-year prison term, it&#8217;s a reminder to all of us who work with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.empowerelearning.com\/security-awareness-training\/\">security awareness training.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s far too easy to become engrossed in the technical aspects of security such as passwords, spyware and viruses, and neglect some of the non-technical aspects such as physical security and social engineering. If a hacker can find an unshredded document with network details in a dumpster, or can call the Help Desk and have them reset a password, many of your technological safeguards are immediately rendered useless.<\/p>\n<p>Remember, it&#8217;s information security &#8211; not just computer security.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>CNET News recently reported that the AT&amp;T account of convicted hacker turned security consultant Kevin Mitnick had been breached for the second time. Reportedly, the hacker(s) simply called a representative at an AT&amp;T store in Idaho and asked them to do a password reset. They then posted Kevin&#8217;s personal details to the Internet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-infosec"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.empowerelearning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.empowerelearning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.empowerelearning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.empowerelearning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.empowerelearning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.empowerelearning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.empowerelearning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.empowerelearning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.empowerelearning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}