Social Engineering
⚡ Prerequisites
Basic Network and Cybersecurity Concepts
📕 Learning Objectives
Perform phishing and watering hole attacks
Describe Social Engineering fundamentals
Identify techniques and real-life scenarios
🗒️ Social engineering is a type of cyber attack that exploits human psychology to gain access to sensitive information or systems. Instead of using technical exploits to hack into a system, social engineers manipulate people into giving up confidential information (gather information) or performing actions that compromise security (gain access).
The success of social engineering attacks relies on the attacker's ability to create a convincing scenario that triggers an emotional response, such as curiosity, fear, or urgency, in the victim.
Social engineering through physical security is an effective tactic to gain physical access to a restricted building or office area.
Here are some examples of manipulating attacks:
Phishing, Vishing, Smishing
Impersonation
Pretexting
Emotional pull, Urgency
Quid pro quo, Blackmail
Watering hole
❗ It's important to stay vigilant against phishing attacks and be wary of any unsolicited messages asking for personal or sensitive information.
Phishing
🗒️ Phishing is the most common form of social engineering attack. Attackers send fraudulent emails that appear to be from a reputable source, such as a bank or social media site, to trick the victim into revealing their login credentials, credit card numbers, or other sensitive information.
e.g.Emails with malicious links and/or attachments
Common types of phishing attacks are:
Spear Phishing- targeted attack where the attacker researches and personalizes the message to increase the likelihood of successWhaling- targets high-profile individuals, such as executives or celebrities, who have access to sensitive information or financial resourcesSmishing- phishing attack that uses SMS text messages to trick the victim into revealing sensitive information or downloading malwareVishing- phishing attack that uses voice communication, such as a phone call, to trick the victim into revealing sensitive informationBaiting- leaving a physical device, such as a USB drive, in a public place for the victim to pick it up and plug it into their computer, unintentionally downloading malware, keylogger, backdoor
Getting people's trust is a big part of a phishing attack and can be done through different approaches like redirecting web traffic maliciously, targeting a trusted site and use it against the victim (watering hole), compromise business email (BEC), spoofing and impersonation.
📌 FBI IC3 - 2022 Internet Crime Report
📌 Trendmicro Security 101: Business Email Compromise (BEC) Schemes
It is essential for organizations to take social engineering attacks seriously and implement comprehensive cybersecurity measures that include employee training, security awareness programs, and regular security audits and controls to identify and address vulnerabilities in their systems and processes. By staying vigilant and educating employees on how to identify and respond to social engineering attacks, organizations can significantly reduce the risk of a successful cyber attack.
Case Studies
Penetration Testing
The purpose of social engineering in a penetration test is to identify weaknesses in an organization's security systems and processes and to raise awareness among employees about the risks of social engineering attacks.
📌 Social Engineering Penetration Testing: Attacks, Methods, & Steps - Purplesec.us
Information Gathering - OSINT, dumpster diving, shoulder surfing, pretexting
External Access to internal I.T. infrastructure - malware, credentials attacks, reverse shells
Physical Access - attempt to gain physical access to the organization's facilities by impersonating employees or contractors, employees badges scan, malicious USBs, work people impersonation
Gophish - a powerful, easy-to-use, open-source phishing toolkit meant to help pentesters and businesses conduct real-world phishing simulations.
❗ Phishing campaigns should only be conducted for legitimate security testing purposes, and not for malicious intent. Additionally, it's crucial to obtain permission and informed consent from the costumer involved in the campaign.
To create a demo instance with a fake campaign, you can use
dockerand this command, made available by the Gophish maintainer Jordan Wright
The basics steps to create a phishing campaign with Gophish are:
Create a
Sending Profile
Set up a new
Landing Page- the landing page is the website or form that the victim will be directed to after clicking on the phishing link
Customize the
Email Template- Gophish provides a set of pre-built email templates, but it can also be create by using the HTML editor or importing an existing template. Customize the email to make it look convincing and relevant to the target audience
Create
Users & Groups- specify targeted users' emails or bulk import users
Create a
Campaign- give the campaign a name, select the type of phishing campaign to create (such as credential harvesting or malicious attachment), and specify the targets and email template
Launch the campaign- Gophish will automatically send the phishing emails to the target list and track who clicked on the link and submitted dataAnalyze the results provided by Gophish as detailed metrics on email opens, link clicks and successful credential submissions.
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