The Art of Deception

Controlling the Human Element of Security

Kevin D. Mitnick, William L. Simon

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9780764542800, 9780471237129
• eBook ISBN: 9780764538391
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Cyber Security
• Index: Computer Science

The world's most infamous hacker offers an insider's view of the low-tech threats to high-tech security
Kevin Mitnick's exploits as a cyber-desperado and fugitive form one of the most exhaustive FBI manhunts in history and have spawned dozens of articles, books, films, and documentaries. Since his release from federal prison, in 1998, Mitnick has turned his life around and established himself as one of the most sought-after computer security experts worldwide. Now, in The Art of Deception, the world's most notorious hacker gives new meaning to the old adage, "It takes a thief to catch a thief."
Focusing on the human factors involved with information security, Mitnick explains why all the firewalls and encryption protocols in the world will never be enough to stop a savvy grifter intent on rifling a corporate database or an irate employee determined to crash a system. With the help of many fascinating true stories of successful attacks on business and government, he illustrates just how susceptible even the most locked-down information systems are to a slick con artist impersonating an IRS agent. Narrating from the points of view of both the attacker and the victims, he explains why each attack was so successful and how it could have been prevented in an engaging and highly readable style reminiscent of a true-crime novel. And, perhaps most importantly, Mitnick offers advice for preventing these types of social engineering hacks through security protocols, training programs, and manuals that address the human element of security.

Part 1
Behind the Scenes

Chapter 1
Security's Weakest Link

A company may have purchased the best security technologies that money can buy, trained their people so well that they lock up all their secrets before going home at night, and hired building guards from the best security firm in the business.

That company is still totally vulnerable.

Individuals may follow every best-security practice recommended by the experts, slavishly install every recommended security product, and be thoroughly vigilant about proper system configuration and applying security patches.

Those individuals are still completely vulnerable.

THE HUMAN FACTOR

Testifying before Congress not long ago, I explained that I could often get passwords and other pieces of sensitive information from companies by pretending to be someone else and just asking for it.

It's natural to yearn for a feeling of absolute safety, leading many people to settle for a false sense of security. Consider the responsible and loving homeowner who has a Medico, a tumbler lock known as being pickproof, installed in his front door to protect his wife, his children, and his home. He's now comfortable that he has made his family much safer against intruders. But what about the intruder who breaks a window, or cracks the code to the garage door opener? How about installing a robust security system? Better, but still no guarantee. Expensive locks or no, the homeowner remains vulnerable.

Why? Because the human factor is truly security's weakest link.

Security is too often merely an illusion, an illusion sometimes made even worse when gullibility, naïveté, or ignorance come into play. The world's most respected scientist of the twentieth century, Albert Einstein, is quoted as saying, “Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.” In the end, social engineering attacks can succeed when people are stupid or, more commonly, simply ignorant about good security practices. With the same attitude as our security-conscious homeowner, many information technology (IT) professionals hold to the misconception that they've made their companies largely immune to attack because they've deployed standard security products—firewalls, intrusion detection systems, or stronger authentication devices such as time-based tokens or biometric smart cards. Anyone who thinks that security products alone offer true security is settling for the illusion of security. It's a case of living in a world of fantasy: They will inevitably, later if not sooner, suffer a security incident.

As noted security consultant Bruce Schneier puts it, “Security is not a product, it's a process.” Moreover, security is not a technology problem—it's a people and management problem.

As developers invent continually better security technologies, making it increasingly difficult to exploit technical vulnerabilities, attackers will turn more and more to exploiting the human element. Cracking the human firewall is often easy, requires no investment beyond the cost of a phone call, and involves minimal risk.

A CLASSIC CASE OF DECEPTION

What's the greatest threat to the security of your business assets? That's easy: the social engineer—an unscrupulous magician who has you watching his left hand while with his right he steals your secrets. This character is often so friendly, glib, and obliging that you're grateful for having encountered him.

Take a look at an example of social engineering. Not many people today still remember the young man named Stanley Mark Rifkin and his little adventure with the now defunct Security Pacific National Bank in Los Angeles. Accounts of his escapade vary, and Rifkin (like me) has never told his own story, so the following is based on published reports.

Code Breaking

One day in 1978, Rifkin moseyed over to Security Pacific's authorized-personnel-only wire-transfer room, where the staff sent and received transfers totaling several billion dollars every day.

He was working for a company under contract to develop a backup system for the wire room's data in case their main computer ever went down. That role gave him access to the transfer procedures, including how bank officials arranged for a transfer to be sent. He had learned that bank officers who were authorized to order wire transfers would be given a closely guarded daily code each morning to use when calling the wire room.

In the wire room the clerks saved themselves the trouble of trying to memorize each day's code: They wrote down the code on a slip of paper and posted it where they could see it easily. This particular November day Rifkin had a specific reason for his visit. He wanted to get a glance at that paper.

Arriving in the wire room, he took some notes on operating procedures, supposedly to make sure the backup system would mesh properly with the regular systems. Meanwhile, he surreptitiously read the security code from the posted slip of paper, and memorized it. A few minutes later he walked out. As he said afterward, he felt as if he had just won the lottery.

There's This Swiss Bank Account…

Leaving the room at about 3 o'clock in the afternoon, he headed straight for the pay phone in the building's marble lobby, where he deposited a coin and dialed into the wire-transfer room. He then changed hats, transforming himself from Stanley Rifkin, bank consultant, into Mike Hansen, a member of the bank's International Department.

According to one source, the conversation went something like this:

”Hi, this is Mike Hansen in International,” he said to the young woman who answered the phone.

She asked for the office number. That was standard procedure, and he was prepared: “286,” he said.

The girl then asked, “Okay, what's the code?”

Rifkin has said that his adrenaline-powered heartbeat “picked up its pace” at this point. He responded smoothly, “4789.” Then he went on to give instructions for wiring “Ten million, two-hundred thousand dollars exactly” to the Irving Trust Company in New York, for credit of the Wozchod Handels Bank of Zurich, Switzerland, where he had already established an account.

The girl then said, “Okay, I got that. And now I need the interoffice settlement number.”

Rifkin broke out in a sweat; this was a question he hadn't anticipated, something that had slipped through the cracks in his research. But he managed to stay in character, acted as if everything was fine, and on the spot answered without missing a beat, “Let me check; I'll call you right back.” He changed hats once again to call another department at the bank, this time claiming to be an employee in the wire-transfer room. He obtained the settlement number and called the girl back.

She took the number and said, “Thanks.” (Under the circumstances, her thanking him has to be considered highly ironic.)

Achieving Closure

A few days later Rifkin flew to Switzerland, picked up his cash, and handed over $8 million to a Russian agency for a pile of diamonds. He flew back, passing through U.S. Customs with the stones hidden in a money belt. He had pulled off the biggest bank heist in history—and done it without using a gun, even without a computer. Oddly, his caper eventually made it into the pages of the Guinness Book of World Records in the category of “biggest computer fraud.”

Stanley Rifkin had used the art of deception—the skills and techniques that are today called social engineering. Thorough planning and a good gift of gab is all it really took.

And that's what this book is about—the techniques of social engineering (at which yours truly is proficient) and how to defend against their being used at your company.

THE NATURE OF THE THREAT

The Rifkin story makes perfectly clear how misleading our sense of security can be. Incidents like this—okay, maybe not $10 million heists, but harmful incidents nonetheless—are happening every day. You may be losing money right now, or somebody may be stealing new product plans, and you don't even know it. If it hasn't already happened to your company, it's not a question of if it will happen, but when.

A Growing Concern

The Computer Security Institute, in its 2001 survey of computer crime, reported that 85 percent of responding organizations had detected computer security breaches in the preceding twelve months. That's an astounding number: Only fifteen out of every hundred organizations responding were able to say that they had not had a security breach during the year. Equally astounding was the number of organizations that reported that they had experienced financial losses due to computer breaches: 64 percent. Well over half the organizations had suffered financially. In a single year.

My own experiences lead me to believe that the numbers in reports like this are somewhat inflated. I'm suspicious of the agenda of the people conducting the survey. But that's not to say that the damage isn't extensive; it is. Those who fail to plan for a security incident are planning for failure.

Commercial security products deployed in most companies are mainly aimed at providing protection against the amateur computer intruder, like the youngsters known as script kiddies. In fact, these wannabe hackers with downloaded software are mostly just a nuisance. The greater losses, the real threats, come from sophisticated attackers with well-defined targets who are motivated by financial gain. These people focus on one target at a time rather than, like the amateurs, trying to infiltrate as many systems as possible. While amateur computer intruders simply go for quantity, the professionals target information of quality and value.

Technologies like authentication devices (for proving identity), access control (for managing access to files and system resources), and intrusion detection systems (the electronic equivalent of burglar alarms) are necessary to a corporate security program. Yet it's typical today for a company to spend more money on coffee than on deploying countermeasures to protect the organization against security attacks.

Just as the criminal mind cannot resist temptation, the hacker mind is driven to find ways around powerful security technology safeguards. And in many cases, they do that by tar...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Social Engineering
• Foreword
• Preface
• Introduction
• Part 1: Behind the Scenes
• Part 2: The Art of the Attacker
• Part 3: Intruder Alert
• Part 4: Raising the Bar
• Security at a Glance
• Sources
• Acknowledgments
• Index
• End User License Agreement