“Theft from a distance” methods are primarily deployed against social engineering targets for two reasons. One reason is that the attacker is cowardly and doesn’t have the skills or feel competent to engage the target directly. The other reason is to maximize the number of potential targets that the attacker can contact in the shortest amount of time. With email and similar communication technologies, an attacker can operate within the “theft from a distance” philosophy and contact large numbers of people with a click of a button. An attacker may be cowardly, but email and mass communication scams will continue as long as attackers have access to these outlets.
“Theft from a distance” is easy and seemingly benign. The attacker remains relatively unexposed and benefits from being discrete. Cyber warfare experts study “theft from a distance” scams used by attackers. Commercial entities, especially anti-virus and spam detection manufacturers, also watch the trends of social engineering criminals to try and protect their customers from “theft from a distance” attacks. The public’s best protection from these attacks is to stay informed of current methods used by social engineering criminals so detection and protection can be achieved. Knowledge is power when defending against social engineering attacks of all kinds, including “theft from a distance” methods.
Have a great week and we will see you here next week here at The O.
Wednesday, 18 January 2012 20:01
Social Engineering Part 4
We have explored various aspects of social engineering the last few weeks including methods and targets. The manipulative art of social engineering falls under a few distinct philosophies depending on which methods are deployed to get what is wanted. One philosophy of social engineering is “theft from a distance”. Thieves steal things. Social engineers steal things. Therefore the correlation between social engineers and thieves is easy to make, but why are some social engineering methods referred to as “theft from a distance”? The reason is that many social engineering scams are conducted via telephone, email, and other forms of communication that don’t involve direct interaction with the target.
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