Social-Engineering Countermeasures

Knowing how to combat social engineering is critical for any certified ethical hacker. There are a number of ways to do this.

Documented and enforced security policies and security awareness programs are the most critical component in any information security program. Good policies and procedures aren't effective if they aren't taught and reinforced to employees. The policies need to be communicated to employees to emphasize their importance and then enforced by management. After receiving security awareness training, employees will be committed to supporting the security policies of the organization.

The corporate security policy should address how and when accounts are set up and terminated, how often passwords are changed, who can access what information, and how policy violations are to be handled. Also, the policy should spell out help desk procedures for the previous tasks as well as a process for identifying employees—for example, using an employee number or other information to validate a password change. The destruction of paper documents and physical access restrictions are additional areas the security policy should address. Lastly, the policy should address technical areas, such as use of modems and virus control.

One of the advantages of a strong security policy is that it removes the responsibility of employees to make judgment calls regarding a hacker's request. If the requested action is prohibited by the policy, the employee has guidelines for denying it.

The most important countermeasure for social engineering is employee education. All employees should be trained on how to keep confidential data safe. Management teams are involved in the creation and implementation of the security policy so that they fully understand it and support it throughout the organization. The company security awareness policy should require all new employees to go through a security orientation. Annual classes should be required to provide refreshers and updated information for employees.

Another way to increase involvement is through a monthly newsletter with security awareness articles.

Types of Social Engineering-Attacks

Social engineering can be broken into two common types:

• Human-Based Human-based social engineering refers to person-to-person interaction to retrieve the desired information. An example is calling the help desk and trying to find out a password.
• Computer-Based Computer-based social engineering refers to having computer software that attempts to retrieve the desired information. An example is sending a user an email and asking them to reenter a password in a web page to confirm it. This social-engineering attack is also known as phishing.

We'll look at each of these more closely in the following sections.

Human-Based Social Engineering

Human-based social engineering techniques can be broadly categorized as follows:

• Impersonating an Employee or Valid User In this type of social-engineering attack, the hacker pretends to be an employee or valid user on the system. A hacker can gain physical access by pretending to be a janitor, employee, or contractor. Once inside the facility, the hacker gathers information from trashcans, desktops, or computer systems.
• Posing as an Important User In this type of attack, the hacker pretends to be an important user such as an executive or high-level manager who needs immediate assistance to gain access to a computer system or files. The hacker uses intimidation so that a lower-level employee such as a help desk worker will assist them in gaining access to the system. Most low-level employees won't question someone who appears to be in a position of authority.
• Using a Third Person Using the third-person approach, a hacker pretends to have permission from an authorized source to use a system. This attack is especially effective if the supposed authorized source is on vacation or can't be contacted for verification.
• Calling Technical Support Calling tech support for assistance is a classic social-engineering technique. Help desk and technical support personnel are trained to help users, which makes them good prey for social-engineering attacks.
• Shoulder Surfing Shoulder surfing is a technique of gathering passwords by watching over a person's shoulder while they log in to the system. A hacker can watch a valid user log in and then use that password to gain access to the system.
• Dumpster Diving Dumpster diving involves looking in the trash for information written on pieces of paper or computer printouts. The hacker can often find passwords, filenames, or other pieces of confidential information.

A more advanced method of gaining illicit information is known as reverse social engineering. Using this technique, a hacker creates a persona that appears to be in a position of authority so that employees ask the hacker for information, rather than the other way around. For example, a hacker can impersonate a help desk employee and get the user to give them information such as a password.

Real World Scenario: Social-Engineering Demonstration

The facilitator of a live Computer Security Institute demonstration showed the vulnerability of help desks when he dialed up a phone company, got transferred around, and reached the help desk. "Who's the supervisor on duty tonight?" "Oh, it's Betty." "Let me talk to Betty." [He's transferred.] "Hi Betty, having a bad day?" "No, why?" "Your systems are down." Betty said, "My systems aren't down, we're running fine." He said, "You better sign off." She signed off. He said, "Now sign on again." She signed on again. He said, "We didn't even show a blip, we show no change." He said, "Sign off again." She did. "Betty, I'm going to have to sign on as you here to figure out what's happening with your ID. Let me have your user ID and password."

So this senior supervisor at the help desk tells him her user ID and password. In a few minutes a hacker is able to get information that might have taken him days to get by capturing traffic and cracking the password. It is much easier to gain information by social engineering than by technical methods.

Computer-Based Social Engineering

Computer-based social-engineering attacks can include the following:

• Email attachments
• Fake websites
• Pop-up windows

Insider Attacks

If a hacker can't find any other way to hack an organization, the next best option is to infiltrate the organization by getting hired as an employee or finding a disgruntled employee to assist in the attack. Insider attacks can be powerful because employees have physical access and are able to move freely about the organization. An example might be someone posing as a delivery person by wearing a uniform and gaining access to a delivery room or loading dock. Another possibility is someone posing as a member of the cleaning crew who has access to the inside of the building and is usually able to move about the offices. As a last resort, a hacker might bribe or otherwise coerce an employee to participate in the attack by providing information such as passwords.

Identity Theft

A hacker can pose as an employee or steal the employee's identity to perpetrate an attack. Information gathered in dumpster diving or shoulder surfing in combination with creating fake ID badges can gain the hacker entry into an organization. Creating a persona that can enter the building unchallenged is the goal of identity theft.

Phishing Attacks

Phishing involves sending an email, usually posing as a bank, credit card company, or other financial organization. The email requests that the recipient confirm banking information or reset passwords or PINs. The user clicks the link in the email and is redirected to a fake website. The hacker is then able to capture this information and use it for financial gain or to perpetrate other attacks. Emails that claim the senders have a great amount of money but need your help getting it out of the country are examples of phishing attacks. These attacks prey on the common person and are aimed at getting them to provide bank account access codes or other confidential information to the hacker.

Online Scams

Some websites that make free offers or other special deals can lure a victim to enter a username and password that may be the same as those they use to access their work system. The hacker can use this valid username and password once the user enters the information in the website form.

Mail attachments can be used to send malicious code to a victim's system, which could automatically execute something like a software keylogger to capture passwords. Viruses, Trojans, and worms can be included in cleverly crafted emails to entice a victim to open the attachment. Mail attachments are considered a computer-based social-engineering attack.

Here is an example of an email that which tries to convince the receiver to open an unsafe attachment:

Mail server report.
    Our firewall determined the e-mails containing worm copies are being sent from your computer.
    Nowadays it happens from many computers, because this is a new virus type (Network Worms).
    Using the new bug in the Windows, these viruses infect the computer unnoticeably.
    After the penetrating into the computer the virus harvests all the e-mail addresses and sends the
    copies of itself to these e-mail addresses
    Please install updates for worm elimination and your computer restoring.
    Best regards,
    Customer support service

Pop-up windows can also be used in computer-based engineering attacks, in a similar manner to email attachments. Pop-up windows with special offers or free stuff can encourage a user to unintentionally install malicious software.

URL Obfuscation

The URL (uniform resource locator) is commonly used in the address bar of a web browser to access a particular website. In lay terms, it is the website address. URL obfuscation consists of hiding a fake URL in what appear to be a legitimate website address. For example, a website of 204.13.144.2/Citibank may appear to be a legitimate web address for Citibank but in fact is not. URL obfuscation is used in phishing attacks and some online scams to make the scam seem more legitimate. A website address may be seen as an actual financial institution name or logo, but the link leads to a fake website or IP address. When users click the link, they're redirected to the hacker's site.

Addresses can be obfuscated in malicious links by the use of hexadecimal or decimal notations. For example, the address 192.168.10.5 looks like 3232238085 as a decimal. The same address looks like C0A80A05 in IP hex. This conversion requires that you divide 3232238085 by 16 multiple times. Each time the remainder reveals the address, starting from the least significant value.

Here's the explanation:

• 3232238085/16 = 202014880.3125 (.3125 × 16 = 5)
• 202014880/16 = 12625930.0 (.0 × 16 = 0)
• 12625930/16 = 789120.625 (.625 × 16 = 10 = A)
• 789120/16 = 49320.0 (.0 × 16 = 0)
• 49320.0/16 = 3082.5 (.5 × 16 = 8)
• 3082/16 = 192.625 (.625 × 16 = 10 = A)
• 192/16 = 12 = C

Social Engineering

Social engineering is a nontechnical method of breaking into a system or network. It's the process of deceiving users of a system and convincing them to perform acts useful to the hacker, such as giving out information that can be used to defeat or bypass security mechanisms. Social engineering is important to understand because hackers can use it to attack the human element of a system and circumvent technical security measures. This method can be used to gather information before or during an attack.

A social engineer commonly uses the telephone or Internet to trick people into revealing sensitive information or to get them to do something that is against the security policies of the organization. By this method, social engineers exploit the natural tendency of a person to trust their word, rather than exploiting computer security holes. It's generally agreed that users are the weak link in security; this principle is what makes social engineering possible.

The following is an example of social engineering recounted by Kapil Raina, currently a security expert at VeriSign, based on an actual workplace experience with a previous employer:

One morning a few years back, a group of strangers walked into a large shipping firm and walked out with access to the firm's entire corporate network. How did they do it? By obtaining small amounts of access, bit by bit, from a number of different employees in that firm. First, they did research about the company for two days before even attempting to set foot on the premises. For example, they learned key employees' names by calling HR. Next, they pretended to lose their key to the front door, and a man let them in. Then they "lost" their identity badges when entering the third floor secured area, smiled, and a friendly employee opened the door for them.

The strangers knew the CFO was out of town, so they were able to enter his office and obtain financial data off his unlocked computer. They dug through the corporate trash, finding all kinds of useful documents. They asked a janitor for a garbage pail in which to place their contents and carried all of this data out of the building in their hands. The strangers had studied the CFO's voice, so they were able to phone, pretending to be the CFO, in a rush, desperately in need of his network password. From there, they used regular technical hacking tools to gain super-user access into the system.

In this case, the strangers were network consultants performing a security audit for the CFO without any other employees' knowledge. They were never given any privileged information from the CFO but were able to obtain all the access they wanted through social engineering.

The most dangerous part of social engineering is that companies with authentication processes, firewalls, virtual private networks, and network-monitoring software are still wide open to attacks, because social engineering doesn't assault the security measures directly. Instead, a social-engineering attack bypasses the security measures and goes after the human element in an organization.

The Art of Manipulation

Social engineering includes the acquisition of sensitive information or inappropriate access privileges by an outsider, based on the building of inappropriate trust relationships. The goal of a social engineer is to trick someone into providing valuable information or access to that information. Social engineering preys on qualities of human nature, such as the desire to be helpful, the tendency to trust people, and the fear of getting in trouble. Hackers who are able to blend in and appear to be a part of the organization are the most successful at social-engineering attacks. This ability to blend in is commonly referred to as the art of manipulation.

People are usually the weakest link in the security chain. A successful defense depends on having good policies in place and teaching employees to follow the policies. Social engineering is the hardest form of attack to defend against because a company can't protect itself with hardware or software alone.