Tuesday, December 01, 2015

Security Month - Episode 3: Social Engineering

End Of The Month


This past month has sure flown past for me. I intended to create one more security month entry, but life got in the way and it will have to wait for another day. Today's post is based on a presentation I gave at work a few years ago on a topic that is probably the most important of all security: the human component. It doesn't matter how good your locks and alarm systems are if you neglect to turn on the alert and lock the front door as you leave your house. Similarly, it doesn't matter if your system is designed properly if your users do not know how to protect the security of the system and their own credentials.

The Conundrum


When designing a secure system, you must walk a fine line between burdening your users with a barrage of security measures and keeping attackers at bay. Legitimate users should be able to access the system quickly, easily, and with minimal interruptions while at the same time keeping it "impossible|" to access the software without permission.

Typical applications rely on single-factor authentication (username / password). When authentication relies only on a secret key (the password), when a password becomes compromised, the system becomes compromised. The more users a system has, the more opportunities exist that at least one user will become compromised.

Social Engineering


It's often simpler to manipulate people than machines. While machines may be rigid in terms of interactions and enforcement of rules, humans tend to be more flexible -- especially when subjected to emotional influences. Social engineering is the process of "hacking" people to gain access to secure systems. This may involve tricking or convincing them to give up sensitive information such as passwords, or manipulating users into performing actions on the attacker's behalf.

Mandatory xkcd Reference

https://xkcd.com/538/


Pretexting


In order to manipulate users into making rash and emotional decisions, attackers may pose as authority figures and create plausible urgent scenarios where sensitive information needs to be divulged. This may include authentication credentials, or other details to be used in subsequent attacks. It's important to inform users to never give out their credentials to an unknown party regardless of urgency.

Phishing


In a phishing attack, a hacker will send a link to an illegitimate web site impersonating a legitimate page. A classic example is an email claiming to be from PayPal, and telling you that your account may have been compromised. It asks you to visit a link and enter your username and password. Ironically for those who are duped, the very attempt to save their credentials is what ultimately divulged them.

It is very simple to copy a legitimate site using copy/paste tools and modify it for devious purposes. Many people are not savvy enough to know to look for a legitimate secure (https) address. Teaching users not to "click the dancing bunnies" and how to verify a legitimate web page is a battle we are constantly waging.


Baiting


A rarer and more targeted attack vector is baiting. In this attack, a hacker will leave a physical device such as a USB thumb drive somewhere to be found. They may leave it in a company parking lot with an enticing label in the hopes that curiosity gets the better of their victim. Upon inserting the device into a secure system, the payload is delivered to either steal information or run a program or script to do something on the attacker's behalf. Users must learn never to connect hardware of suspicious origin to a secure system.


Quid Pro Quo



A hacker may attempt to butter up users by giving them something, either physical or performing a service, in return for sensitive information. While this may come in the form of a bribe, it may be as simple as establishing a friendly relationship over several days and requesting a simple favor.

Perhaps the most devious attempt I've heard described is to call random employees at a large company posing as "technical support". Many non-technical people will accept support on their latest computer problem and can be tricked into entering commands on the attacker's behalf.

All Good Things...


If there's one lesson to be learned from this post, it's to always be on your guard. "Trust no one" is bad advice to live by, but essential advice when it comes to sensitive credentials. Computers do not have human judgement and will gladly accept validated credentials from the shadiest of characters. As is demonstrated so well by social engineering, humans and machines do not behave the same way and your interactions with them ought not follow the same rules.

That brings us to the end of Amish Programmer security month. I hope you learned something new, or at least refreshed yourself.

Here's wishing you a merry Christmas and a happy New Year. I hope you return next year for some non-security topics here at Amish Programmer.

Cheers,

Joshua Ganes