Art of Deception: Controlling the Human Element of Security

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More About This Book

Overview

The world's most infamous hacker offers an insider's view of the low-tech threats to high-tech security Kevin Mitnick's exploits as a cyber-desperado and fugitive form one of the most exhaustive FBI manhunts in history and have spawned dozens of articles, books, films, and documentaries. Since his release from federal prison, in 1998, Mitnick has turned his life around and established himself as one of the most sought-after computer security experts worldwide. Now, in The Art of Deception, the world's most notorious hacker gives new meaning to the old adage, "It takes a thief to catch a thief."
Focusing on the human factors involved with information security, Mitnick explains why all the firewalls and encryption protocols in the world will never be enough to stop a savvy grifter intent on rifling a corporate database or an irate employee determined to crash a system. With the help of many fascinating true stories of successful attacks on business and government, he illustrates just how susceptible even the most locked-down information systems are to a slick con artist impersonating an IRS agent. Narrating from the points of view of both the attacker and the victims, he explains why each attack was so successful and how it could have been prevented in an engaging and highly readable style reminiscent of a true-crime novel. And, perhaps most importantly, Mitnick offers advice for preventing these types of social engineering hacks through security protocols, training programs, and manuals that address the human element of security.

Editorial Reviews

From Barnes & Noble
The Barnes & Noble Review
The name “Kevin Mitnick” is a Rorschach test for the digital age. To the government (and to companies like Sun Microsystems, whose Solaris source code he once appropriated), Mitnick was pure menace, marauding through computer systems that didn’t belong to him, causing millions of dollars of losses, and blazing a trail for even worse cybercriminals. To much of the hacker community, Mitnick’s a hero, unjustly persecuted by an ignorant Department of Justice: a prophet in the wilderness, warning folks who are too lazy or dumb to protect their digital assets. Perhaps you’ve seen those Free Kevin bumper stickers. After five years in prison, Mitnick’s on parole and evidently following the straight and narrow, though he’s still not allowed a web connection -- or even a ham radio license.

Even if you could care less about Mitnick personally, though, his book The Art of Deception is indispensable if you care about the vulnerability of your business computer systems -- or your own personal information. Mitnick presents the best discussion of “social engineering” we’ve ever seen: the art of understanding how to trick people into voluntarily handing over the information needed to break into computer systems.

It’s a shame you have to worry about folks “toy[ing] with your trust, your desire to be helpful, your sympathy, and your human gullibility to get what they want,” but you do -- and after you’ve read Mitnick’s extensive collection of case studies, you’ll be ready the next time someone tries social engineering on you.

You’ll learn how crackers have convinced even suspicious employees to reveal their usernames and passwords; six ways “phone phreaks” can get unlisted phone numbers from the telephone company; and how investigators can quickly discover a terrifying amount of information about you and your company. You’ll also learn how, through a chain of “innocuous” conversations, a cracker can get into even the most well protected systems.

Mitnick closes with a detailed guide to preventing social engineering attacks on your organization, including practical recommendations for employee security training, and a complete, easy-to-adapt security policy you can start implementing now. This may not be where you expected to get your security advice from, but hey, who could possibly know your vulnerabilities better than Kevin Mitnick? Bill Camarda

Bill Camarda is a consultant, writer, and web/multimedia content developer. His 15 books include Special Edition Using Word 2000 and Upgrading & Fixing Networks For Dummies®, Second Edition.

Forbes
Finally someone is on to the real cause of data security breaches--stupid humans. Notorious hacker Kevin Mit-nick--released from federal prison in January 2000 and still on probation--reveals clever tricks of the "social engineer-ing" trade and shows how to fend them off in The Art of Deception: Controlling the Human Element of Security (Wiley, $27.50).

Most of the book, coauthored by William Simon (not the one running for governor of California), is a series of fictional episodes depicting the many breathtakingly clever ways that hackers can dupe trusting souls into breaching corporate and personal security--information as simple as an unlisted phone number or as complicated as plans for a top-secret product under development. The rest lays out a fairly draconian plan of action for companies that want to strengthen their defenses. Takeaway: You can put all the technology you want around critical information, but all it takes to break through is one dolt who gives up his password to a "colleague" who claims to be working from the Peoria office.

What's useful about this book is its explanation of risks in seemingly innocuous systems few people think about. The caller ID notification that proves you're talking to a top executive of your firm? Easily forged. The password your assistant logs in with? Easily guessed. The memos you tossinto the cheap office shredder? Easily reconstructed. The extension that you call in the IT department? Easily forwarded.

Physical security can be compromised, too. It's not hard to gain access to a building by "piggybacking" your way in the door amid the happy throng returning from lunch. You'd better have confidence in your IT professionals,because they're likely to have access to everything on the corporate system, including your salary and personal informa-tion. Mitnick offers some ideas for plugging these holes, like color-coded ID cards with really big photos.

Implementing the book's security action plan in full seems impossible, but it's a good idea to warn employees from the boss down to the receptionist and janitors not to give out even innocuous information to people claiming to be helpful IT folks without confirming their identity--and to use things like encryption technology as fallbacks. Plenty of would-be Mitnicks--and worse--still ply their trade in spaces cyber and psychological.
—Stephen Manes

More Reviews (1) Fewer Reviews
From The Critics
He was the FBI's most-wanted hacker. But in his own eyes, Mitnick was simply a small-time con artist with an incredible memory, a knack for social engineering, and an enemy at The New York Times. That foe, John Markoff, made big bucks selling two books about Mitnick -- without ever interviewing him. This is Mitnick's account, complete with advice for how to protect yourself from similar attacks. I believe his story.

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780764542800
  • Publisher: Wiley, John & Sons, Incorporated
  • Publication date: 10/6/2003
  • Edition number: 1
  • Pages: 368
  • Sales rank: 104,357
  • Product dimensions: 152.40 (w) x 228.60 (h) x 23.30 (d)

Meet the Author

Kevin Mitnick is the founder of Defensive Thinking, an information security firm, and speaks widely on security issues. He has appeared on 60 Minutes and elsewhere in the media, and his exploits have spawned several bestselling books, including The Fugitive Game.

William Simon is the bestselling author of more than twenty books.

Read an Excerpt

Chapter 2, The Art of Deception

Security is too often merely an illusion, an illusion sometimes made even worse when gullibility, naïveté, or ignorance come into play. The world’s most respected scientist of the twentieth century, Albert Einstein, is quoted as saying, “Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.” In the end, social engineering attacks can succeed when people are stupid or, more commonly, simply ignorant about good security practices.

Many information technology (IT) professionals hold to the misconception that they’ve made their companies largely immune to attack because they’ve deployed standard security products. Anyone who thinks that security products alone offer true security is settling for the illusion of security. It’s a case of living in a world of fantasy: They will inevitably, later if not sooner, suffer a security incident.

A Classic Case of Deception

One day in 1978, Stanley Rifkin moseyed over to Security Pacific’s authorized-personnel-only wire-transfer room, where the staff sent and received transfers totaling several billion dollars every day.

Arriving in the wire room, he took some notes on operating procedures, supposedly to make sure the backup system his company was developing would mesh properly with the regular systems. Meanwhile, he surreptitiously read the day’s security code from a posted slip of paper, and memorized it. A few minutes later he walked out.

As he said afterward, he felt as if he had just won the lottery.

Leaving the room at about 3 o’clock in the afternoon, he headed straight for the pay phone in the building’s marble lobby, where he deposited a coin and dialed into the wire-transfer room. He then changed hats, transforming himself from Stanley Rifkin, bank consultant, into Mike Hansen, a member of the bank’s International Department.

According to one source, the conversation went something like this:

“Hi, this is Mike Hansen in International,” he said to the young woman who answered the phone.

She asked for the office number. That was standard procedure, and he was prepared: “286,” he said.

The girl then asked, “Okay, what’s the code?”

Rifkin has said that his adrenaline-powered heartbeat “picked up its pace” at this point. He responded smoothly, “4789.” Then he went on to give instructions for wiring “Ten million, two-hundred thousand dollars exactly” to the Irving Trust Company in New York, for credit of the Wozchod Handels Bank of Zurich, Switzerland, where he had already established an account.

She took the number and said, “Thanks.”

A few days later Rifkin flew to Switzerland, picked up his cash, and handed over $8 million to a Russian agency for a pile of diamonds. He flew back, passing through U.S. Customs with the stones hidden in a money belt.

He had pulled off the biggest bank heist in history-and done it without using a gun, even without a computer. Oddly, his caper eventually made it into the pages of the Guinness Book of World Records in the category of “biggest computer fraud.”

Table of Contents

Foreword vii
Preface ix
Introduction xv
Part 1 Behind the Scenes 1
Chapter 1 Security's Weakest Link 3
Part 2 The Art of the Attacker 13
Chapter 2 When Innocuous Information Isn't 15
Chapter 3 The Direct Attack: Just Asking for It 31
Chapter 4 Building Trust 41
Chapter 5 "Let Me Help You" 55
Chapter 6 "Can You Help Me?" 77
Chapter 7 Phony Sites and Dangerous Attachments 93
Chapter 8 Using Sympathy, Guilt, and Intimidation 105
Chapter 9 The Reverse Sting 133
Part 3 Intruder Alert 147
Chapter 10 Entering the Premises 149
Chapter 11 Combining Technology and Social Engineering 173
Chapter 12 Attacks on the Entry-Level Employee 195
Chapter 13 Clever Cons 209
Chapter 14 Industrial Espionage 225
Part 4 Raising the Bar 243
Chapter 15 Information Security Awareness and Training 245
Chapter 16 Recommended Corporate Information Security Policies 259
Security at a Glance 331
Sources 339
Acknowledgments 341
Index 347
Customer Reviews
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  • Anonymous

    Posted December 31, 2011

    Wow

    This was an extraordinary book!

    Locke

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  • Posted November 1, 2009

    more from this reviewer

    Vivid, eye-opening stories with a dry, professional addendum

    This is a highly enjoyable collection of short stories demonstrating social engineering fundamentals. It's Scams 101 written by a highly credible author. Each method chapter draws from street experience and is analyzed for comprehension and defense, This is a real eye-opener for those of us sheltered in corporate office jobs or academia.

    The first two thirds of the book are the method chapters, while the remaining third is a rather dry sequence of corporate policy recommendations. The recommendations seem stale, but they establish ample justification for your boss to buy it for you. (Perhaps another scam pulled off by Mitnick?).

    If I have any criticism it is that, despite the title, the book concentrates on the defensive side of the 'art'. There are no lists of suggested exercises to practice each method; instead short case analyses are concluded with steps to avoid being a victim. Also, the acknowledgements section is plainly a nauseous gush.

    The writing style of the bulk of the book is great though: easy and engrossing. If you tore off the last third of the book, it would stand on its own as a must-read for anyone interested in modern deception and fraud.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted May 20, 2005

    Amazing Book

    This book is undoubtably a good read. It kept my intrest the whole way through. I am a social engineer but i wanted to learn more about this subject so i picked up this book and my skills improved alot. I only use my social engineering skills for talking my way out of on into things i dont think its worth the risk of diong some of the things in this book. SO DONT ATTEMPT ANY THING U READ IN THIS BOOK!!!!

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  • Anonymous

    Posted May 2, 2005

    Amazing!

    Never in my life have books kept my attention, but I must say this book is truly amazing! I love the wording and the storys that are used. I have learned so much from Kevin.

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    Posted November 10, 2010

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