Chapter 4 Social Engineering, Physical, and Password Attacks

Question 1

In Social Engineering attacks, what is the principle of Authority?

Answer 1

Authority relies on the fact that most people will obey someone who appears to be in charge or knowledgable.

Question 2

In Social Engineering attacks, what is the principle of intimidation?

Answer 2

Intimidation relies on scaring or bullying an individual into taking a desired action.

Question 3

In Social Engineering attacks, what is the principle of consensus?

Answer 3

uses the fact that people tend to want to do what others are doing to persuade them to take an action.

Question 4

In Social Engineering attacks, what is the principle of scarcity?

Answer 4

used to make something look more desirable because it may be the last one available.

Question 5

In Social Engineering attacks, what is the principle of familarity?

Answer 5

relies on you liking the individual or even the organization the individual is claiming to represent.

Question 6

In Social Engineering attacks, what is the principle of trust?

Answer 6

like familiarity, trust relies on a connection with the individual being targeted.

Question 7

In Social Engineering attacks, what is the principle of Urgency?

Answer 7

Urgency relies on creating a feeling that action must be taken quickly for some reason.

Question 8

Social engineering: Urgency vs. Scarcity

Answer 8

Scarcity - only one left in stock!

Urgency - we need credentials or we’re going to miss out on this business deal!

Question 9

Social Engineering: Familiarity vs Trust

Answer 9

Both rely on connection to the target, but:
familiarity relies on targets thinking something is normal and thus familiar
trust relies on the specific connection to the target

Question 10

What is phishing?

Answer 10

broad term used to describe fraudulent acquisition of information

Question 11

smishing vs vishing

Answer 11

smishing is via SMS, vishing is via telephone.

Question 12

Spear phishing vs Whaling

Answer 12

Spear phishing is targeting specific individuals or groups in an organization,
Whaling is targeting specific individuals of high status or position (CEO, CISO, CFO)

Question 13

Best defense against phishing?

Answer 13

security best practices, AWARENESS

Question 14

pharming vs typosquatting vs watering hole

Answer 14

• Pharming redirects traffic away from legitimate websites to malicious ones,
• Typosquatting uses similar but subtly different URLs in hopes that people will mistype the legitimate URL and end up at the malicious one.
• watering hole attacks don’t redirect users, they use websites that targets frequent to attack them. this can be done by compromising the site or deploying malware through an ad network.

Question 15

spam/SPIM

Answer 15

spam or SPIM (Spam over instant messaging) is unsolicited junk mail, relying on the idea that sooner or later if you send enough shit someone will click it.

Question 16

In Person techniques

Answer 16

Dumpster diving
Shoulder surfing
tailgating
eliciting information - technique used to gather information without targets realizing they are providing it or being targeted.

Question 17

Prepending

Answer 17

1. adding an expression of phrase such as “safe” to a set of email headers to fool the user into thinking it’s safe
2. adding information as a part of another attack to manipulate the outcome
3. suggesting topics via social engineering to lead the target toward related information the attacker is looking for.

Question 18

Pretexting

Answer 18

the process of making up a scenario to justify why you are approaching an individual. often used as part of impersonation to make the attack more believable.

Question 19

Password Attacks

Answer 19

Brute force
Password spraying
dictionary attacks - uses a list of words to guide a brute force attack

Question 20

note on password storage

Answer 20

“In fact, best practices for password storage don’t rely on encryption; they rely on passwords never being stored and instead using a well-constructed password hash to verify passwords at login.”

Question 21

Malicious flash drive attacks

Answer 21

attackers may drop drives in places they are likely to be picked up and plugged in by unwitting victims at their target organization. Sometimes attackers will label the drives with compelling text that makes they more likely to be plugged in: performance reviews, financial planning, etc.

Can be a trojan.

Malicious USB cables exist, but are less common because they require dedicated engineering to build.

Question 22

Card cloning

Answer 22

focus on capturing RFID and strip cards used for entry. attackers may also use “skimming” which is a fake reader that captures card data for cloning.

Question 23

Supply chain attacks

Answer 23

compromise systems before it reaches an organization