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Phreaking

Phreaking is a slang term coined to describe the activity of a subculture of people who study, experiment with, or explore telecommunication systems, like equipment and systems connected to public telephone networks. The term "phreak" is derived from the words "phone" and "freak". It may also refer to the use of various audio frequencies to manipulate a phone system. "Phreak", "phreaker", or "phone phreak" are names used for and by individuals who participate in phreaking. Additionally, it is often associated with computer hacking. This is sometimes called the H/P culture (with H standing for Hacking and P standing for Phreaking). information on this site is for educational purposes only! Wyretap Network ©2007 - 2010

Disclaimer: The information on this site is for educational and entertainment purposes only. It is not intended to encourage or teach you to break the law, that's what TV is for, albeit in a very flawed manner. The owner(s) of this website will not be held liable for anything you choose to do with the information contained on this site. If you want to learn how to rape, murder, loot, and commit acts of terror on a monumental scale, well, you won't find it here. Instead, tune-in to your nightly news and take a lesson from your 'elected' 'leaders'.

Social engineering techniques and terms

All social engineering techniques are based on specific attributes of human decision-making known as cognitive biases.[1] These biases, sometimes called "bugs in the human hardware," are exploited in various combinations to create attack techniques, some of which are listed here:
Pretexting
Pretexting is the act of creating and using an invented scenario (the pretext) to persuade a targeted victim to release information or perform an action and is typically done over the telephone. It is more than a simple lie as it most often involves some prior research or set up and the use of pieces of known information (e.g. for impersonation: date of birth, Social Security Number, last bill amount) to establish legitimacy in the mind of the target. [2]
This technique is often used to trick a business into disclosing customer information, and is used by private investigators to obtain telephone records, utility records, banking records and other information directly from junior company service representatives. The information can then be used to establish even greater legitimacy under tougher questioning with a manager (e.g., to make account changes, get specific balances, etc).
As most U.S. companies still authenticate a client by asking only for a Social Security Number, date of birth, or mother's maiden name, the method is effective in many situations and will likely continue to be a security problem in the future.
Pretexting can also be used to impersonate co-workers, police, bank, tax authorities, or insurance investigators — or any other individual who could have perceived authority or right-to-know in the mind of the targeted victim. The pretexter must simply prepare answers to questions that might be asked by the victim. In some cases all that is needed is a voice that sounds authoritative, an earnest tone, and an ability to think on one's feet.
Phishing
Main article: Phishing
Phishing is a technique of fraudulently obtaining private information. Typically, the phisher sends an e-mail that appears to come from a legitimate business—a bank, or credit card company—requesting "verification" of information and warning of some dire consequence if it is not provided. The e-mail usually contains a link to a fraudulent web page that seems legitimate—with company logos and content—and has a form requesting everything from a home address to an ATM card's PIN.
For example, 2003 saw the proliferation of a phishing scam in which users received e-mails supposedly from eBay claiming that the user’s account was about to be suspended unless a link provided was clicked to update a credit card (information that the genuine eBay already had). Because it is relatively simple to make a Web site resemble a legitimate organization's site by mimicking the HTML code, the scam counted on people being tricked into thinking they were being contacted by eBay and subsequently, were going to eBay’s site to update their account information. By spamming large groups of people, the “phisher” counted on the e-mail being read by a percentage of people who already had listed credit card numbers with eBay legitimately, who might respond.
IVR or phone phishing
This technique uses a rogue Interactive voice response (IVR) system to recreate a legitimate sounding copy of a bank or other institution's IVR system. The victim is prompted (typically via a phishing e-mail) to call in to the "bank" via a (ideally toll free) number provided in order to "verify" information. A typical system will reject log-ins continually, ensuring the victim enters PINs or passwords multiple times, often disclosing several different passwords. More advanced systems transfer the victim to the attacker posing as a customer service agent for further questioning.
One could even record the typical commands ("Press one to change your password, press two to speak to customer service" ...) and play back the direction manually in real time, giving the appearance of being an IVR without the expense.
The technical name for phone phishing, is vishing.
Baiting
Baiting is like the real-world Trojan Horse that uses physical media and relies on the curiosity or greed of the victim.[3]
In this attack, the attacker leaves a malware infected floppy disk, CD ROM, or USB flash drive in a location sure to be found (bathroom, elevator, sidewalk, parking lot), gives it a legitimate looking and curiosity-piquing label, and simply waits for the victim to use the device.
For example, an attacker might create a disk featuring a corporate logo, readily available off the target's web site, and write "Executive Salary Summary Q2 2009" on the front. The attacker would then leave the disk on the floor of an elevator or somewhere in the lobby of the targeted company. An unknowing employee might find it and subsequently insert the disk into a computer to satisfy their curiosity, or a good samaritan might find it and turn it in to the company.
In either case as a consequence of merely inserting the disk into a computer to see the contents, the user would unknowingly install malware on it, likely giving an attacker unfettered access to the victim's PC and perhaps, the targeted company's internal computer network.
Unless computer controls block the infection, PCs set to "auto-run" inserted media may be compromised as soon as a rogue disk is inserted.
Quid pro quo
Quid pro quo means something for something:
An attacker calls random numbers at a company claiming to be calling back from technical support. Eventually they will hit someone with a legitimate problem, grateful that someone is calling back to help them. The attacker will "help" solve the problem and in the process have the user type commands that give the attacker access or launch malware.
In a 2003 information security survey, 90% of office workers gave researchers what they claimed was their password in answer to a survey question in exchange for a cheap pen.[4] Similar surveys in later years obtained similar results using chocolates and other cheap lures, although they made no attempt to validate the passwords.[5]
Other types
Common confidence tricksters or fraudsters also could be considered "social engineers" in the wider sense, in that they deliberately deceive and manipulate people, exploiting human weaknesses to obtain personal benefit. They may, for example, use social engineering techniques as part of an IT fraud.
The latest type of social engineering techniques include spoofing or hacking IDs of people having popular e-mail IDs such as Yahoo!, GMail, Hotmail, etc. Among the many motivations for deception are:
Phishing credit-card account numbers and their passwords.
Hacking private e-mails and chat histories, and manipulating them by using common editing techniques before using them to extort money and creating distrust among individuals.
Hacking websites of companies or organizations and destroying their reputation.

The Real ID Coming Soon!!!

The Real ID Coming Soon!!!

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Defending against hackers at their own conference

Part of going to any conference is picking and choosing the presentations to attend. But, going to a hacker conference, such as the upcoming HOPE in New York City, means taking extra care for security. In my case, I'm going to bring a Windows XP laptop. Am I asking for it?

Here's my plan, many parts of which can help anyone needing to secure a computer while traveling.

Since Internet access at the conference is via an unsecured wireless network, the most obvious first step is use a VPN. VPNs provide the over-the-air encryption that comes with WPA or WPA2 on home/business networks.

Without a corporate home office to connect to, I pay a yearly fee for VPN access to Witopia. They offer two types of VPNs, PPTP and SSL, and have been very reliable. Yes, there are free, ad-supported VPNs, but that's not a business model for me. Some free things are great, but good security is worth paying for.

Another step that anyone using a public wireless network should take is insuring that the operating system firewall is both running and configured properly.

On some computers I use Online Armor from Tall Emu, but in many ways the firewall built into Windows XP is just fine. What's especially nice about it, is that the configuration is drop-dead simple. Complex firewall configuration is an accident waiting to happen.

If you're not sure about the state of a firewall on a computer, you can test it at Shields UP! a free service from Steve Gibson. Stealthed ports are the best, closed ports are good enough and open ports are bad. Be aware though, that if your computer is behind a router, any external firewall test is actually testing the firewall in the router, not your computer.

One step that is easily skipped is File and Printer Sharing. On a home or business network, we normally want to share files with other computers on the LAN. Not so on a public network. File and printer sharing will be disabled on my XP system while at the conference. With Windows 7, if you tell it that you are on a public network, it should turn off file and printer sharing.

Ad-hoc networks are another potential danger.

Normal networks, run by a router are called "infrastructure" networks and this is the only type you want to deal with. Computers can create their own ad-hoc networks such that two computers can communicate directly without involving a router. Bad guys create ad-hoc networks in the hope of luring in unsuspecting computer users. Not me. Windows XP will be configured to never connect to any ad-hoc network, a step anyone running XP should take.

Speaking of XP, every time I boot my laptop, I will logon on a restricted user, rather than an administrator.

Normally when I travel, sensitive files are stored in a TrueCrypt container on the hard drive. However, this being a hacker conference, I'm keeping the TrueCrypt container on a USB flash drive in my pocket and I hope to never have to refer to any sensitive files while at the conference.

Even more so, I'll separate the somewhat sensitive files into a different container from the more sensitive ones.

If, however, I have to look at any of the sensitive files, this means entering the TrueCrypt password while in the belly of the beast, so to speak. To minimize potential damage, I won't use my normal password, but will create a new one specifically for the conference.

Ditto email. Beforehand, I'll change my email password, and after the conference, I'll change it back.

Speaking of email, I normally use Thunderbird, but won't at the conference.

Any client side email program has to send out your password to an email server, and this exchange is, all too often, unencrypted. VPN or not, special short-term password or not, this scares me. All my email will be done via encrypted webmail.

Of course, all webmail systems are not the same. Some only encrypt the logon, others encrypt everything, including the pages for reading and writing email. Gmail is perhaps the most secure in that it now encrypts everything. This gives me two levels of encryption, the VPN and SSL from Gmail. Fortunately, the webmail system offered by my ISP also encrypts everything.

Gmail has another great feature, auditing. At the bottom of each page is a link to information about the last couple times the account was accessed. Great feature. It could be better, but I haven't yet seen anything comparable on another webmail system.

As for web browsers, it goes without saying that Internet Explorer will never see the light of day.

The big advantage to Firefox is the zap I wrote about last year. With a slight modification to a CSS file, Firefox can display all secure web page URLs in green. This is a great defense against man-in-the-middle attacks and is especially helpful in the home office of such attacks, a hacker confab.

For extra protection, I just may well run Firefox in a Sanboxie sandbox. And, if I can remember, I'll turn off the Wi-Fi radio in my laptop when I'm not online. That's a big if though.

There's my game plan. Come and get me hackers. Uh, then again, never mind.

Michael Horowitz

Defensive Computing

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