Ethical Hacking Week 8
This is week we learn about one of the step in hacking which is social engineering. Social engineering is the act of information gathering by way of communication. There are several ways to gather information through social engineering. One of the way is to befriend someone who works at the place you are targeting. When you befriend someone and make them trust you, they may sometimes unconsciously slip up and tell you confidential information about the company. Even small things such as knowing the name of the higher up can be a good information, one of the way to use this is to pretend that you are assigned to one of the projects given by this higher up. We also learn the difference between interviewing and interrogation. In interviews, the person being interviewed acknowledge that they are interviewed and has set up a meeting beforehand while in interrogation, the person interrogated does not schedule the interrogation beforehand. They may get violated physically sometimes and they do not agree to be interrogated.
Today we learn about a hacker called Kevin Mitnick
Social engineering can also be used to escape danger, such as Kevin Mitnick who was once a hacker and imprisoned for 5 years due to his hacking activity. He uses his own social engineering skill to escape the FBI once, by saying that the person the FBI searches for is not him and that he can prove it by checking the mailbox name. He is also known to hack communication device that allow him to be one step ahead of the FBI. He is now a computer security consultant to the government and an author. He also creates a security firm called Mitnick Security which help test company’s security and seek potential loopholes.
This is Kevin Mitnick
Here is a video of a live hacking he does to intercepts and read an email.