The Art of Deception: Controlling the Human Element of Security by Kevin D. Mitnick; William L. Simon; Steve Wozniak

Author:Kevin D. Mitnick; William L. Simon; Steve Wozniak
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Reference:Computers
ISBN: 076454280X
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2002-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

chapter 11

Combining Technology and Social Engineering

A social engineer lives by his ability to manipulate people into doing things that help him achieve his goal, but success often also requires a large measure of knowledge and skill with computer systems and telephone systems.

Here’s a sampling of typical social engineering scams where technology played an important role.

HACKING BEHIND BARS

What are some of the most secure installations you can think of, protected against break-in, whether physical, telecommunications, or electronic in nature? Fort Knox? Sure. The White House? Absolutely. NORAD, the North American Air Defense installation buried deep under a mountain? Most definitely.

How about federal prisons and detention centers? They must be about as secure as any place in the country, right? People rarely escape, and when they do, they are normally caught in short order. You would think that a federal facility would be invulnerable to social engineering attacks. But you would be wrong—there is no such thing as foolproof security, anywhere.

A few years ago, a pair of grifters (professional swindlers) ran into a problem. It turned out they had lifted a large bundle of cash from a local judge. The pair had been in trouble with the law on and off through the years, but this time the federal authorities took an interest. They nabbed one of the grifters, Charles Gondorff, and tossed him into a correctional center near San Diego. The federal magistrate ordered him detained as a flight risk and a danger to the community.

His pal Johnny Hooker knew that Charlie was going to need a good defense attorney. But where was the money going to come from? Like most grifters, their money had always gone for good clothes, fancy cars, and the ladies as fast as it came in. Johnny barely had enough to live on.

The money for a good lawyer would have to come from running another scam. Johnny wasn’t up to doing this on this own. Charlie Gondorff had always been the brains behind their cons. But Johnny did-n’ t dare visit the detention center to ask Charlie what to do, not when the Feds knew there had been two men involved in the scam and were so eager to lay their hands on the other one. Especially since only family can visit, which meant he’d have to show fake identification and claim to be a family member. Trying to use fake ID in a federal prison didn’t sound like a smart idea.

No, he’d have to get in touch with Gondorff some other way.

It wouldn’t be easy. No inmate in any federal, state, or local facility is allowed to receive phone calls. A sign posted by every inmate telephone in a federal detention center says something like, “This notice is to advise the user that all conversations from this telephone are subject to monitoring, and the use of the telephone constitutes consent to the monitoring.” Having government officials listen in on your phone calls while committing a crime has a way of extending your federally funded vacation plans.

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