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>> Do actual exit routes.
Now I'm on. Hello everybody.
[APPLAUSE]
So in order to not waste too much time in my yabbering,
but instead listen to somebody smart,
welcome to the next talk.
I'm not sure if you're actually here by your own choice,
or if somebody has had a spell on you,
but maybe you'll find out after 20 minutes,
after the talk by Uwe Hecker about identifying social engineering.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you very much.
Yeah, welcome.
20 minutes and I want to show you a bit what I did,
well, almost the last 10 years to identify social engineering,
because it's quite a challenge.
Okay, let's start.
Why I am doing that?
So the first thing is after years in information security,
I always had the feeling that
digital and physical security measures are not really
capable of dealing with the human element.
So you do everything, firewalls, antivirus and so on,
physical access control, and then at the end,
someone can social engineer or just get into the building
or bypass anything with a malicious USB stick, etc.
So there's always this kind of human element,
and we had a very famous paper in 1999,
which is "Why Johnny Can't Encrypt",
and it's about PGP 4.0, so a long time ago,
but still we have the challenge how to get security measures used,
and do we want that end users use security measures directly?
So it was PGP 5.0.
We are still having that issue.
If an end user who is not security savvy
needs to interact with security mechanisms,
something like memorizing a password,
recalling a password, entering a password,
and then we tell them, "Okay, please use a complex long password,"
and then we say, "Okay, use multi-factor authentication,"
and the user says, "Okay, so much security, are you paranoid?"
So that's maybe the end user perspective,
"Why are you doing all that stuff?"
And the security engineer says, "Why?
It's just that easy, just do it."
But from a workflow perspective, you always get interrupted.
There's a pop-up, "Ah, VPN down."
So I need then multi-factor authentication again,
and your workflow gets interrupted, which costs time.
So there is this approach, "Okay, then use opportunistic encryption,
and let's see later maybe if it was secure."
Maybe the key changed,
and then you will see something, the safety number change.
And for an end user, what does that tell an end user?
They just say, "Okay, safety number changed, and now?"
"Don't know, let's go on."
So we still have to tackle this issue.
It's called, the research topic is usable security.
On the other hand, if you force an end user
to use security-related mechanisms,
then they become a part of the attack vector, of the attack surface.
They can be attacked as well.
You have digital, physical security measures,
and then you force them, and then you can attack them as well.
You can exploit that factor,
which makes it quite difficult to deal with,
to protect our assets, whatever that is, against such attacks.
If you use the complex password, long password, an MFA,
then social engineering is quite easy to circumvent that,
to just make all these kind of cool ideas,
cool, we will see in use of security maybe a few years later, obsolete.
So obsolete in the sense of, no, this factor can be exploited.
So what my question was at the beginning, over 10 years ago,
is we always have to deal with this factor,
and how can we go further there?
How can we understand that? Why are maybe some end users more susceptible to,
for example, social engineering than others?
So I was looking for a suitable social engineering definition,
which means suitable for interdisciplinary research,
for finding then social engineering stories, anecdotes in the wild.
How to get such insights?
How does social engineering work, the modus operandi?
So we need somehow evidence.
What kind of evidence ever?
Or you can use experimental designs.
But the point is, what is social engineering?
How can I identify it?
So my first approach was looking for indicators
in a cycle of interlocking deduction and induction,
so it was over the years, and looking for a definition.
And of course, you know the famous XKCD.
I have a new one.
But the point for me was that it's not single use.
These indicators can be used as well for identifying social engineering in the wild.
So it's dual use.
In the end, it's for me for identifying social engineering.
So when I was looking for a definition,
I came up, ah, there's an RFC, perfect, RFC 4949.
Yeah, they say don't use that.
It's too widely used.
And the majority of papers or talks, et cetera, say social engineering.
You know, everyone knows something, and everyone has a different view.
Me as well, no?
So I'm standing here.
And please don't use that.
And using just examples to define it is not the best approach.
I was looking for a good definition and then find the indicators.
The challenge, so, was as well to do this interdisciplinary research
because social engineering is not just computer science.
And suitable, of course, I already mentioned that.
But also, it should not be too general.
Some people say every human interaction is social engineering.
A kid at the checkout in the supermarket sees some sweets.
OK, social engineers may be the parents, but is this social engineering?
So this was all the cycle I was thinking of.
And sometimes too vague, missing something or too strict,
such as saying only digital technology, only via IT.
But social engineering is not something new.
This is my view, and we can discuss this maybe later somewhere in the corner
because we only have 20 minutes.
So the point was that it's nothing new.
It's not only IT related.
For example, the Spanish prisoner scam, which is OK, short info there,
which is via prisoners that should be sending mails,
should be telling people, please, if you give me money,
so a kind of advanced fee scam,
and then I will reward you because I'm a millionaire and I'm in prison.
And this worked in some pubs, telling people, please, we need money to get him out,
and then he will reward you later.
But we need money first to do this.
So these are the things that is nothing new, like grandparents scam as well.
Could be on the door, person to person, no telephone scam, no IT, no Internet.
So therefore, I was looking into just finding indicators.
So first thing, here you see the first three of the five.
What you need to know here is that I have two perspectives, two views.
That is the target person.
I use targeted person and not victim because the person is targeted
and becomes a victim if successful.
So that's a different thing.
And you see the capital letters, which is the RFC 2119,
about how to put some operators, what is really important here.
So first thing, target person is the human enabler.
And this was quite the key for me, a key enabler, meaning only if there is a human element
that is exploited enables the attack.
So some people say dumpster diving is social engineering.
No, it's not for me.
There's no human element in the majority of times.
It's a pre-attack information gathering to then maybe make a social attack
or to use this could be then social engineering to manipulate someone
to throw something in the bin, which you later gather.
So that could be social engineering.
So just to give that a difference.
And this is for me the most important indicator.
The second one is the attacker must initiate the communication,
which could be three different types, like bidirectional,
meaning there's really a communication.
You receive a facsimile scam, like you just get a lot of money,
please call this lawyer somewhere in Spain.
And then you have bidirectional communication.
Unidirectional, which is just the typical scams without not just a phishing email,
spear phishing as well, where you just click on a link, for example.
And indirect means that you would maybe drop a malicious USB, a bad USB,
stick somewhere in the parking lot and hope that people picks it up,
goes through the physical access measures, turnpile anything,
then puts it into the laptop in the company,
where you have firewalls protection, etc.
But you can use the USB port and then have maybe a malicious payload there.
So this is intentional communication, unawareness of the targeted person.
So as well, you will see in the next slide, it goes on vice versa.
So someone who is bribed and knows about that is not social engineered.
He knows about this.
So there's an unawareness factor about the real attacker's intention.
It could be something different than we can think of social engineering.
Then we have the malicious intent of the attacker.
So some people say maybe a teacher who has the best interest of a pupil is social engineering.
But that's the best interest.
Well, we can discuss what is best teaching, etc. and education,
but there's best interest like parents as well.
So is this social engineering? No.
And the last one, which I will elaborate a bit more, is deceptive techniques.
So this is the other part of unawareness.
The attacker used deceptive techniques and get the targeted person comply with the request,
which could be anything, but I won't go into detail in 20 minutes.
So deceptive techniques.
We have many different types and a long list and it's not finished,
but you can see it in literature.
For example, Kevin Mitnick used name dropping.
If you know someone's name in a company, then you call someone else and tell them,
"Hey, this person, your colleague, wants this done, please help me."
Or phishing.
There are types of opportunistic social engineering.
If you use phishing and jump onto a bandwagon, for example,
GDPR compliance, that you send out a bank phish and telling the people,
"You need to comply or your bank account will be deactivated."
Such things.
Or the pandemic as well, of course.
Impersonation is quite interesting technique.
Many people think about the Captain of Köppenick as quite a funny story,
which has real life roots, but the Standgericht Herholt, in English the drum,
had a court martial, was really happening at the end of the World War II,
where someone, a chimney sweeper from Chemnitz, used a military uniform from the military police
and pretended to be military police, got other soldiers following him and then executing people.
So this is about techniques.
And one part of my definition is that a deceptive technique must have an underlying persuasion principles.
One or more.
There are different types.
Of course, people who are into social engineering have heard about Cialdini.
It's from marketing and marketing uses some techniques that can quite easily be used for malicious intent.
And if you think of marketing techniques, you have viral marketing, you can use dark patterns, etc.
And then we have a gray area and could be maybe not in the best interest of the targeted person, of the audience.
So there are some, like I will go faster over it, but as well, this is nothing new.
Loss aversion is something for the historians maybe, that Adam Smith already used.
If there's a good, scarce, then people tend to be motivated to buy that product,
even if they maybe at the moment don't need that.
So this is something as well, nothing new.
And Stajano and Wilson as well, an interesting paper.
And for those who want to see some episodes, the real hustle is the series.
Quite nice to see how they do.
I would say most of them are social engineering in the wild.
Okay, so far persuasion principles.
That's for now.
I don't know if you trust me that this is not a malicious link or failure or anything,
but this is the link to my thesis, which has quite more interesting pieces.
For example, I analyzed court documents looking for phishing in German court documents.
Or I organized with some friends the social engineering poetry slam on one of the conferences or congresses a few years back.
Okay, so far I think I am in time.
Then thank you very much and stay safe.
Yep.
Okay, thanks a lot.
So we have a couple of minutes so we can have a couple of questions.
So if you have a question, line up here.
You see the mic is here.
There.
Yeah.
So, yes.
If you want to talk privately with the Google Hacker,
they promised to be on that side of the tent after the talk.
So, yes, we have a question there.
Hi.
So malicious intent seems to be a bit vague.
So your social engineering definition for your attempt to make it less vague is based on something that is also vague.
Yeah, malicious intent is as well vague.
I have in my thesis more examples.
So if you think it's not everything is monetary,
but the majority I would think is monetary even if you have tried to harm the reputation of a company
and the reputation leads to some losses.
No, it's again a bit financial, but there are many things.
If you want to harass someone, then this could be as well.
So, yes, you can do that.
But the whole social engineering depends on how you do it.
So there are many things.
And therefore this is vague as well.
I agree.
And maybe this would be important to have there more definition as well.
But, yeah, thank you.
Yes, we have time for one question more.
So, please.
Thank you for your talk.
I have done some assessments and we tried to get in the building and usually it works.
But at the same time, I sometimes thinking how often does this happen for real?
With malicious intent.
With malicious intent getting into the building.
Because I have a get out of the jail free card with me.
But a malicious attacker won't have and has to answer if they are caught to the police.
So the stakes are pretty high for an attacker.
They are.
As well, there's a challenge.
One thing is tailgating is nothing new.
You do this maybe of kindness.
Someone, okay, just come in or you get an access card without many questions or details.
But in the end, this was the challenge for me.
I need evidence.
But how can I find evidence that is suitable, meaning has enough information what happened?
And this is quite difficult.
Because some people don't want to talk about incidents in their company.
And others say I heard from someone.
And then you as a from researching from scientific perspective,
you can't really tell if it's true or not.
As an extreme, if you take some book of a security engineer and they tell a story,
how can I prove or be sure that this is correct?
And of course, some books are cited quite often.
But you can't be sure that it's correct.
Citing is good.
But what is the source?
Can I ask someone?
And even news articles are not very honest always.
Therefore, it was my approach to use the court documents.
Because they have a truth-finding process in itself.
Okay.
We're unfortunately out of time.
You can, Google Hacker will be available here at the side of the stage for a while for like extra questions.
So let's give one more huge applause.
Thank you very much.
[ Applause ]
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