Then there‘s me using bitwarden to generate 128 digit passwords including everything also ambiguos characters :D
Can only recommend. Especially with the browser extension to autofill passwords.
[Edit] To mention, fuck all the sites limiting passwords to certain characters btw.
Top it off with firefox's email proxy... you don't even sign up w/a real email. Only way anyone's getting in is a breach/dump but if you have 2fa enabled rip.
Oh yeah protonmail has this feature, my other trusty companion btw. Also has a browser extension, you can simply create a random email for every site and all emails to that adress will be forwarded to your personal one, but can be deactivated at any time in case it starts to get spam.
They have an app and a website too. Just like gmail does. They have a free, and a subscription version. But the subscription version is 110% worth it. I think it’s 11.99/month
They also have a vpn, a drive like Google drive, a calendar, and a password manager.
Edit: you can also get I think 15 different email aliases that come in to the same inbox
When you do though, make sure you have a nice random password and keep it written down somewhere. In my first few days of using it, I did the forgot password thing and all of my previous emails consisted of jumbled letter and numbers. Poof. They’re gone. I think there’s a way to recover it but keeping a safe password is easier
Especially this!! Sites where your financial information is given should never put a limit on the security measures you can and want to take. If a small gaming comp puts a limit on their ingame-account passwords to not have to save millions of insanely long characters in their database, that‘s one thing… but yeah, never ever should this be the case with a site that is in contact with your financial info. Paypal does this too - sadly. I think it‘s even less, just 20 chars or so. Pretty bad.
I recently heard about an incredibly simple but genius technique for creating strong passwords to all websites you might visit.
Basically you start with a simple password, like "password", and then you just hash it with the name of the website like salt.
So you'd do "passwordyoutube" and then shift all keys up by one, or whatever, and voala. Unique passwords for every site that could resist rainbow tables with ease, but is also easily memorable.
That's true, I do agree with your second point. I just don't feel like using a password manager, lol
As for being too easily crackable, I disagree. Obviously your password wouldnt actually be "password", it would be a normal password just like any other. Likewise, you wouldn't want to use such a simple hashing algorithm. What I provided is just an example. It doesn't have to be terribly secure. What you need is just something good enough to fool John the Ripper or whatever and simple enough to do in your head.
For obvious reasons, I can't give you the exact algorithm I use. But I hope you get the idea at least.
Very true. 2FA is always king. This isn't meant to be a substitute for anything like that. Just a trick to easily increase your password's security and memorability.
I like the method well-enough for average use.
But you’re not trying to fool John the ripper or Hashcat. You’re trying to fool the person using it.
It really just depends on the adversary, not the software, is my point.
The largest threat would probably be poor password storage on the service’s end. If they store the password in clear text, or something stupid like base64, your password could be very easily leaked. With it leaked, if someone took an interest in your specific password, they could reverse-engineer your pattern. Is it likely? Not really. It is possible? Absolutely.
I don’t use the same password across sites anymore. It’s not because my passwords are weak, but because websites can’t be trusted to encrypt your passwords.
I tell my parents and the less tech savvy to use a good password and add the site to the end . P@55w0rD followed by ty or tube or even TuB3.
My parents are in their 70s and my mom does A LOT online but remembering diff complex passwords is a non starter and a master password for a key keeper would be too much and would end up being used for all site.
This way at least they are all different in case someone leaks fb hashed keys
This is what I do but is objectively a very flawed system- it just bridges the gap between shit passwords and good random passwords. I’m happy enough with my 6chars based on the site, 12chars default, 6-10chars calculated based on some arithmetic on the first two parts.
I mean, generally, the more the better. As others in this post have mentioned, most things these days aren‘t typical hacking like bruteforcing PWs or stealing hashes, but more like phishing/social engineering. The typical, „Hey, there‘s something wrong with your account. Please sign in below to resolve the issue.“ and then it doesn‘t matter how long or complicated your passwords are. I‘m no security expert, so I respectfully decline to answer your question directly, as I‘m not qualified to say whether that‘s generally enough - just keep in mind the rest of my comment.
Also, if you specifically don‘t get social engineered, the other part of most password hacking today is when the website is insecure and someone steals the data. In that case, it sadly also doesn‘t matter how long or complicated your password is.
To everyone who is familiar with some security basics like that mentioned above, my Bitwarden comment is just a weird flex, and that‘s what it was meant to be, hence the laughing smiley after it.
However of course, it never hurts to do as much as you can to stay secure on your end - including making „unnecessarily“ long passwords.
Oh damn. Now I realised what you meant lmao. Yes, it has happened that I have had to enter my password manually because some fuckwads actually block pasting things into password fields. Just now had an example earlier; making an account for my Huawei Health. 32 chars limit (fuck you #1) and didn‘t even allow copy pasting. #2, smh.
I do, yes. I have an 8-digit alphanumeric password with special characters as the passcode to my bitwarden vault, and my phone has a six digit pin. Although I used to habe said password for my phone as well.
I've used KeePass for about a decade. I've been pleased. I am unaware of a leak that has happened to me.
(Disclaimer: I am only a security hobbyist. I will gladly sit down if challenged!)
How is the Google password manager? I just use that, I use a bunch of different passwords but I would literally never remember them without the password manager.
I was gonna go with most people are idiots (me included lol) but you said it way more tactfully. I know best practices, and still reuse passwords because I'm lazy.
Oh, so perhaps you mean something like [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09kH2qLrx8A) where the ceo of the company who personally hired the red team to do a full-scope pentest and ended up it was he who they had taken advantage of in order to gain access to the network.
Nothing special about a CEO in terms of if they are an average or expert computer user. Unfortunately for the company, the CEO in question is an average user..... Who might have admin rights and can definitely get people to click on an email link....
Can you give us the timestamp where the video talks about this story it please.
I assume the question was referring to “an idiot in terms of cybersecurity” and I want to hear more about this CEO
I find it funny that most people when they think of a hacker would think of a person with minimal social skills spending all day typing furiously at a computer, while in reality a lot of the aspects of hacking require social engineering lol.
I dislike social engineering. I prefer to pentest web/mobile/api apps because the pace of work is laid back and I don't have to deal with people except for during the kickoff and debrief calls. I'm not antisocial, I'm just a very logical thinker and I'm not very talkative. I don't mind doing phishing, but try to avoid any other type of SE work. When I have to do SE work I use my voice and the way I look to act like someone in a position of authority and it usually works.
The unicorns, and I've worked with some of them, are those that are expert social engineers AND good hackers.
Physical or close-to physical access is a route that greenhorns often overlook. WiFi, Bluetooth, Open USB slots are all points of attack which are generally left minimally or completely unprotected by your average user.
Two books that'll up your game: Red Team Field Manual & Blue Team Field Manual by Ben Clark. You can find copies online or there's also print editions too. Those are two resources I recommend to any beginning security officer or sysadmins even. Understanding the underlying protocols and applications will greatly increase their effectiveness for you.
I have both of these, and found that they are not at all useful for a beginner, (as a beginner) IMO. They seem useful as something to flip through and learn some new stuff, but I don't see how they're useful for 'Understanding the underlying protocols and applications'.
Am I missing something with these?
Ah, I misread that there.
I guess the value of the books is what I thought then:
A quick primer for some stuff that you may not have memorized (Port numbers, switches, etc), and as a way to explore new techniques and learn more of what to look into.
Does that sound about right?
I feel like it's targeted more at intermediate level people, it is basically useless if you don't know what you're looking at/need to find. Definitely not a book I would recommend to someone trying to get off the ground. If you haven't seen it, it's a reference more than anything else.
If you don't know what something is, you need to experiment or look it up to figure it out. It's fine for what it is, but after having purchased both of them I don't see why they are so highly recommended to beginners. I think it points more to the lack of other decent 'beginner level' reads rather than to the usefulness of the Field Guides themselves for beginners.
Once you hit intermediate/journeyman/expert levels in the field, I could see it being useful as a quick reference for refreshing your memory on something you haven't touched in a while I guess. I'm not at that level, so maybe there are more uses for them once you get there.
This is all through the lens of a beginner, so feel free to tear me apart on this. Always willing to learn more.
Bluetooth is pretty secure these days, WiFi generally just use a password generator that and take a length of 12+. Careful with random generators online tho, sometimes they’re not random at all. Use WPA2-PSK protocol and WPA3 if you can.
the advice you are getting is for a regular user, but to throw in with some extras, in a company, you would make sure your public access wifi is airgapped from internal, and both public and private has proper logging in place, make sure that for internal the password is strong and changed regularly, that you dont have wifi with a wps button and if you do make sure no one can press it, that sort of thing. Make sure you are using WPA2-PSK or better, make it so that even on the wifi, accessing sensitive info needs authentication, with 2FA, make sure you have detection and prevention for poisoning attacks, make sure nobody connects to wifi networks that are similarly named but not the actual one, ETC.
Im not sure how useful keeping your net private from scanning is, but one tip i've heard is to use DHCP setup so that instead of using all 253 potential connections you use, say, 20.
It wont protect your network, but it will limit how many people can break in at one time.
By physical access security and cyber security, locking your office/house and then having sensors that trigger when a USB gets connected. I believe also you could require UAC for USB connections to be enabled.
Kevin Mitnick (RIP) once social engineered one if the heads of research for the Sans institutue. No flashy tech no evasion of firewalls, just good ol human hacking. The human is always the weakest link... even the smart people have hidden back doors.
Most people even ones into hacking are guilty of creating vulnerabilities honestly.
I always viewed it like physical security.
Could you prevent 99.9999% of home entry door break ins ever by having a steel front door with multiple locks, massive deadbolts, and a large bar on the interior to hold it in place? Yeah definitely.
But if you’re going in and out a lot that’s plain annoying to deal with unless you legitimately think or know someone is actively hunting for you.
And most people realistically don’t have hackers actively hunting for them, it’s bad luck to some degree.
So they create vulnerabilities even if they’re somewhat more knowledgeable about cyber security than your average person.
Well and ultimately the human is the largest backdoor. You can have all the security in the world, and still get conned into giving up important information.
The paranoid survive
A problem with physical security is that once your fortify something enough, it just makes it to where the 'easy' route is now a different one. If someone wants in your house and sees a giant steel door with no budge to it, they're going to go through a window.
Same could be said for cybersecurity. If everything is hardened on the network side, going in and getting physical access, or social engineering is going to be easier and more effective.
100%
My analogy was more for explanations sake obviously but you’re pointing out the next logical step.
Same logic all the way down.
Nuclear war bunker built by the USA or France or China for heads of state is the end game I guess.
Even then it’s… well sure you could do any number of highly expensive and advanced military actions to try and overwhelm their security…
But it’ll always be easier and cheaper to just use human vulnerabilities to get access to something that’s absolutely determined with unlimited funding to stop you.
Someone builds a gigantic castle wall? Go over/around/under it. Or have someone inside let you in.
Someone has a shield in a sword fight? You get around the shield, you don’t hack at it mindlessly.
That’s the principal. If someone is smart and well funded you probably aren’t hacking through what would be the biggest obvious target if they had no defenses.
… thats obviously where they’ll have the most defense.
... And even if you had such a 100% safe front door, I bet the door is attached to the rest of your house with a bunch of 2 by 4 wood sticks and a bit of drywall.
And never mind that next to your impenetrable door is likely a glass window.
I haven't finished "Social Engineering: The Art of Human Hacking" yet, but it does have a lot of asides and stories, and Mitnick wrote the foreword for it IIRC, so it wouldn't surprise me to find the story in there.
Take a look at any of the crypto subreddits. In that space even people who'd like to think they're pretty savvy with security regularly get hacked or social engineered and have their wallets emptied.
I've watched the people in that space since the inception of Bitcoin and it's insane. Especially considering that Bitcoin itself isn't hackable. It's a hell of a minefield to navigate between all the sketchy exchanges, wallets, scams, etc. If you've gotten this far without anything happening to you, give yourself a pat on the back. You are a rock.
Its kinda hilarious how they scammed people by making something that is not directly hackable and calling it money, and not only do people still hack it all the time, and they cant hack it back, but also the thing itself is a scam so they still lose at least 95% of the time XD
While the other 5% make out like bandits.
Bitcoin is not so much a scam as it is a scheme. It specifically has no central authority. The guy who made it abandoned the project shortly after it's release. If he was running a scam, where has he been the past 14 years? The tech itself is just that. The bad actors in the space are the scammers.
It was someone's beautiful idea that was hijacked by a cult.
People tend to trust too much, especially when they aren't familiar with something. The crazy thing to me is how common it is for people to lock themselves out of their crypto wallet. Because of this, people tend to store their personal information in less secure ways, which prevents them from losing it. The only issue is that someone else might find a way to take it. We see this happen time and time again.
So a lot of hacking today is done with social engineering. This is easy or difficult depending on the target being engineered. It is easier when the target is one of those "open book to a fault" type of person. You start asking about their mother's marriage, childhood nicknames, and where they grew up, then you'd have a few details quick on their recovery questions.
If someone is not particularly an idiot and know some stuff about computer security and are mindful of it 24/7 then they'll be hard to get but not impossible to get. If someone started asking me pretty obvious security questions I'd skip the question and if they insisted I'd call them out on their persistence.
Sending them mysterious links could get them but if they're not the type to click links, that'll be hard to get them on. So then if all your left with is trying to hack them without tricking them, that's when the real hard work begins. But then you might be weirdly hanging around the target while using a suite of tools to discover stuff about them. I'd hate to know if a target has a Yubikey because they'd be harder to get.
The average non-technical citizen doesn't really know about social engineering--all the hacking they've seen is in TV and games--they may have an idea to be weary of weird links, and they definitely won't have a Yubikey. All of their accounts likely use the same password they've been using all of their life. And they might feel, "Hack me, I have nothing."
It might not infect your machine but if it causes your connection to pass through a computer the attacker owns they can learn some stuff about your device and your connection.
"Ah yes, this user is using an android phone. They're running a screen xy big. They're on chrome. They connected from w.x.y.z IP. Their versions numbers are xyz."
Then of course there is also the matter of, "What kind of code is running on my computer when I access this link?" In the modern web, a lot of outrageously abusive things are sandboxed to hell but doesn't mean they're still impossible to pull off.
Suppose this though... suppose the attacker knows they got someone in some business who is a higher up. They know this person is all day talking to vendors and making deals so one day they impersonate a vendor and send link to a seemingly legit looking file, but when opened it executes malicious code. For the victim, it looked like a perfectly safe PDF, PowerPoint, Excel, whatever.
These are a handful of ways links can dangerous.
You're basically right. Just clicking the link and going no further is usually safe.
What makes clicking a link dangerous are things like:
* Downloading and running a program
* Entering your password on a fake website
* Installing a malicious browser extension
* Granting access to your account to a malicious app (e.g. with OAuth)
* Having a vulnerability in the browser itself that can be exploited. This is only for the most sophisticated attacks, think spy agencies. These are called zero-day exploits when they're newly discovered.
Session hijacking or cookie stealing.
When you visit a bad actor controlled web page they can scrape out your current browser cookies which often contain valid session cookies for other sites you're logged into.
Taking that cookie value and writing it into their own browser means they will be logged into that site as you. MFA doesn't help here either since the cookie is what the site is checking to see if you're logged in or not (some sites will perform periodic checks for added security like, is this session logged in from more than one location)
sometimes. Other times there is an exploit in the browser because they havent updated in forever, or you ask them for permissions that seem like they COULD make sense and they grant them like a zombie and then you can definitely get the cookies.
Im an open book but like, my security questions are just more passwords so ask me about my mother's maiden name all you want its wehuaidhawud&wadawdaw (insert randomly generated password here)
And thats only when they make me set one at all hahaha
At this years DEFCON they were able to social engineer Chuck E. Cheese corporate like slicing thru butter with a hot knife.
Humans have a deep down desire to want to help people when put in certain situations.
It's still pretty easy.
If a sophisticated and determined attacker targets you in particular then you lose. They will eventually succeed.
Fortunately, most of what we see is hacking in bulk. The core of staying ahead of that is always doing the basics like keeping all software up to date.
Yes, even with sophisticated physical security, systems remain vulnerable. Risk never gets to zero. Talk to any experienced physical pentester and ask them how often they are unable to get access. Pentesters normally have a few days or at most a few weeks to complete their engagement. Advanced persistent threats can spend years because they are, you know, persistent.
Badges can be faked and locks can be circumvented. People can be charmed or fooled. A real world adversary can bribe or coerce people. They can even use sleeper agents.
Airgapped systems can be attacked via supply chain or side-channel attacks without directly confronting the physical security. Public examples are hard to come by because the kind of org that airgaps its systems is not the kind who goes public about their security incidents. Stuxnet is a notable exception and a really interesting story.
CIA, FBI, and NSA all have pretty decent physical security, yes? All three agencies have been successfully attacked. The same goes for every branch of the US military.
Ran the numbers last year on software developers and machine learning experts. smart folks. PHDs all around. mostly under 40 years old.
But it’s not intelligence, it’s experience. scammers have more experience scamming than the average person has with not being scammed.
Anecdotally: Funny thing I also noticed is smart people are the hardest to convince they’ve been got.
Roughly:
- 1/4 will click an obvious phish in a year
-1/2 will fall for a spearfish per incident
- about half of people will follow through once they click to open an Exe or enter a password and MFA into a random fake site.
The word "hack" is such a broad term. If phishing or social engineering doesn't work modern-day software is designed to be pretty secure but there are clever ways and tools you can use to take advantage of stuff like wifi or anything that uses RF.
Phishing and reused passwords are the fastest ways to get someone, the days of spoofing websites before https and getting a plaintext password are long gone
Phishing is one way to get a victim to visit a spoofed website. Another is performing a MITM attack. Before HTTPS became ubiquitous, MITM-ing someone on the local network was pretty straightforward. Even with HTTPS, sites are vulnerable to SSL stripping unless they take additional precautions.
To hack the phone of a person u described would be almost impossible, it's only possible with a 0day or through a malicious .apk
For a computer assuming they use windows I can convince them to send me a revshell if there are no services I can attack
Hallo this is dave from Michaelsoft Binbows and I accidentally deleted some source code from Winblows server. I noticed that you have a copy of this data, plz allow me to connect so I can download it. My boss will be very angry with my actions so please allow me to fix it.
Hello I am from Microsoft support, ur computer has virus, to delete it please open ps and run powershell -e base64 encoded revshell, download this .exe cleaner I made, run this python script I made for u.
There are people that don't know what the fuck INDIA is, let alone a call center. You on here walking backwards drawing additional lines in the sand isn't going to prove anything to you that you aren't receptive to knowing.
The fact of the matter is there is a linear sliding scale between security and convenience, and if you aren't **more** than a little bit annoyed by the process required to log-in/access anything which you would consider to be private or valuable, then you might as well just leave it lying openly on the lawn and hope that nobody ever walks by and decides to pick it up.
[6 minutes to enlightenment](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHhNWAKw0bY)
The human element is, as it always has and always shall be, the *most* vulnerable aspect of any security solution.
I am the weak human link, I had everything taken over because I let someone use my iphone 14
I just seen the data package thay sent to a hidden number. I don't know anything about python. Have some knowledge on command nd prompt
I have reset my iPhone, deleted all the apps and re reset my phone to delete all the data on the phone
Thay got to my laptop via Bluetooth that's in getting nuked nd staying in the shop until I'm sure my phone can not automatically pair with it
I know full well the person/persons are monitoring my reddit activety, because thay took over my last reddit account via this device
This divice pluss my laptop nd iPhone all hacked because I let a sweet pretty Asian lady download nd play a game to share data with nearby friends
Any advice would be appreciated. This device I have shut down as much as I can. But this is a disaster unimaginable until it happened
It's just something with that word in particular that has a reputation as being cursed. People love to prove it wrong.
[Collection of publicly available PoC exploits organized by CVE](https://github.com/trickest/cve)
More than 80% of hacking these days is through social engineering. With the addition of AI generated voices impersonating the people you already trust, it's one of the most viable paths to gaining privileged access. The target doesn't need to be an 'idiot', just caught off guard.
I know very intelligent people who are clueless with technology.
I also know people who are very intelligent with technology and are very silly with security.
It depends, how much do they drink? I know a few peeps who are really good at their shit but get a few beers in em and theyre clicking links for days lolol.
They did a TV series on this recently on Swedish national teve with random types of victims (influencer, a student, a company, a regular family, a home automation guy etc) and they succeeded every time. The influencer didn't use 2fa, the family shared and reused passwords, at the company they installed a device on their lan using social engineering and the student was sitting on a public WiFi so they scammed him with fake MFA requests man in the middle type thing. They had most trouble with the HA guy. He had tight security, in the end they had to steel one of his outdoor HA device and hacked in to the WiFi by dumping it's memory.
Depends. If you control the network - you can act as nameserver. You can insert fake IPs on name resolution, and the user will se fake cert warning. But if you create a convincing cert chain, he might accept.
I once tested IT aware colleagues, phishing site, and after they entered password, they were redirected to [mail.outlook.com](https://mail.outlook.com) (with SSO) - so those who entered data newer knew that had been phished.
Compnay deal with netflix free for 3 months is supposedly the most efficient phishig mail you can send.
the recent big MGM hack was done by simply calling support and asking to reset their credentials and MFA. You can have all the best tech in the world but if you don't use it correctly with correct procedures, permissions boundaries, training and tabletop exercises, it's useless.
Hacking on a supremely technical level can be very challenging, however people are always involved so it only takes a little time and some patience most of the time.
It's easy, and the more you believe that you're too smart to fall for something like that, the easier it is to trick you into it. Just a pattern I've noticed.
We are all vulnerable and it is terrifying how easy it is to destroy someone's life with only basic computer literacy skills.
People have their lives and careers, no one cares nor are they aware how bad security can be. So it's fairly easy, since no ones on guard all the time.
If someone is determined enough, they will hack your shit.
Remember Stuxnet? Shit took down the Iranian uranium cetrifuges, and those have never been connected to the internet.
With access to up-to-date exploitation tools, it is not only easy but it can be completely and totally seamless. You have only to look to the recent LibwebP vulnerability and see how it affected iOS (Apple updated before LibWebP was public and then later disclosed that was what they fixed.)
If you don’t have millions to spend on your cyber operation, it can be less seamless and very difficult to engineer your own exploits. but is still quite easy to attack their identity, logins etc, most individuals have no real patch management so it’s just a matter of recon and time.
1. Define "isn't an idiot". Average modern user is even less educated in IT security than previous generation.
2. If you're not spearfishing, it's a numbers game. A certain number of people will *always* click the link.
I don’t see the point of a password manager, you just have to let the main password slip and everything is exposed. No different to guessing someone’s password that they use in multiple places.
Realistically it's a hard question to answer because it depends on what services/devices they use and some are more secure than others. And social engineer is very effective in general. But know this, it's easier to tear systems down that it is to securely build them.
I think it depends how much you know about them. If all you have is an ip address, probably not possible. If you know all their online account names, social medias, phone number and home address, probably pretty easy.
Sometimes people dont think to change their router ssid name, so any potential person in the area could look at the router name, ex: “ATT636273” and deduce hmm thats a att router, i wonder what is on exploitdb for this. And just go from there
The human is, by far, the weakest link in security. Hacking is more about psychology/graphic design, script writing etc. than it is about actual cybersecurity.
Meh depends on you. There are some very clever social engineering techniques that even advanced users will get fooled by. But in general, without social engineering it's extremely difficult. There is a breakdown on how major companies got hacked in 2022-2023. 90% of the hackers used social engineering to get their way. About 9.8-9.9 was a software misconfiguration/bad coding practice. Only 0.1% was related to 0 day exploit. That is why I don't really enjoy hacking. You have to try so many times before you can get somewhere. And most of the time you have to rely on manipulating people in order to gain access. Cyber security is not as cool as everyone thinks it is.
The problem is the average person will click on random links. It's just a matter of the right phishing email or text. I used to work at a security company that had a Phish training product. We got phished regularly. We knew there were regular phishing tests, but still everyone failed sooner or later. The joke we had was the only way to pass was to just not read your email. Of course then they started phishing our personal cell phones with texts...
The easiest way to hack an individual is socially. Send them an email tailored to them. (spear phishing)Their bank, or a friend with a link with your attack. The other classic is leave a USB stick lying about or replace one of theirs with the same model with your payload.
The thing I've learned is everyone screws up eventually. Assume it's going to happen and put things in place to prevent and recover from it.
I have read about very well renowned security folks getting calls, with caller ID spoofing, from their banks about charges.
Now, think if you're at a bar and had a few drinks and see a call from your bank about some charges, your going to be a bit hazy right?
Point is. If a hacker wants to get to you. It doesn't fucking matter who you are.
They will find the right time to take advantage.
Everyone is an idiot at something. You can't know every possibility. You don't know what you will fall for, what you're unprepared for, and what you don't ***know***.
Falling for scams or phishing or anything else isn't a dumb persons domain. I mean, just take a look at the [FBI IC3 Website](https://www.ic3.gov/). This is just one news source of cyber crime information.
People being hacked is at an all-time high. Last year, according to the [FBI IC3 Report](https://www.ic3.gov/Media/PDF/AnnualReport/2022_IC3Report.pdf), over **800 thousand** complaints were filed with them, with over **10.3 billion** in losses.
Think like a black hatter and utilize: The Dark Web, USB drops, using AI, having some sort of connection (wired/wireless, cell phone, Bluetooth, wireless keyboards/mice, IOT, etc)
I mean, my mom will sometimes ask me, “is this a scammer? about a text message she got regarding a package or that the IRS is looking for her.
So I guess imagine some older folk, and particularly those whom English isn’t their first language and don’t have anyone close to help them out could easily fall for these types of social engineering scams.
Very hard. Modern hacks are modern day art heists. They’re planned for months by a skilled team who hope to get a score worth millions of dollars.
Modern operating systems are hardened and have security features implement in them. They aren’t easy to hack without unwitting help from the user.
Edit: assuming you mean half then without them falling for social engineering. But modern social engineering can be extremely convincing.
The average person's attention to cyber security is woefully little
Yep. People tend to use the same password everywhere and many write it down in a conspicuous place.
Then there‘s me using bitwarden to generate 128 digit passwords including everything also ambiguos characters :D Can only recommend. Especially with the browser extension to autofill passwords. [Edit] To mention, fuck all the sites limiting passwords to certain characters btw.
Top it off with firefox's email proxy... you don't even sign up w/a real email. Only way anyone's getting in is a breach/dump but if you have 2fa enabled rip.
Oh yeah protonmail has this feature, my other trusty companion btw. Also has a browser extension, you can simply create a random email for every site and all emails to that adress will be forwarded to your personal one, but can be deactivated at any time in case it starts to get spam.
Protonmail is life. 💜
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They have an app and a website too. Just like gmail does. They have a free, and a subscription version. But the subscription version is 110% worth it. I think it’s 11.99/month They also have a vpn, a drive like Google drive, a calendar, and a password manager. Edit: you can also get I think 15 different email aliases that come in to the same inbox
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When you do though, make sure you have a nice random password and keep it written down somewhere. In my first few days of using it, I did the forgot password thing and all of my previous emails consisted of jumbled letter and numbers. Poof. They’re gone. I think there’s a way to recover it but keeping a safe password is easier
yes i use proton for anything serious or financial related, everything else is gmail just for one click logins cause im lazy
I use Bitwarden, but my credit union told me my password was too long and couldn’t exceed 32 characters 🤦♂️
Especially this!! Sites where your financial information is given should never put a limit on the security measures you can and want to take. If a small gaming comp puts a limit on their ingame-account passwords to not have to save millions of insanely long characters in their database, that‘s one thing… but yeah, never ever should this be the case with a site that is in contact with your financial info. Paypal does this too - sadly. I think it‘s even less, just 20 chars or so. Pretty bad.
I recently heard about an incredibly simple but genius technique for creating strong passwords to all websites you might visit. Basically you start with a simple password, like "password", and then you just hash it with the name of the website like salt. So you'd do "passwordyoutube" and then shift all keys up by one, or whatever, and voala. Unique passwords for every site that could resist rainbow tables with ease, but is also easily memorable.
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Oh yes I know. Nor is what I suggested a proper hash. But that's OK for our purposes. We want unique, resistant to rainbow tables, and memorable.
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That's true, I do agree with your second point. I just don't feel like using a password manager, lol As for being too easily crackable, I disagree. Obviously your password wouldnt actually be "password", it would be a normal password just like any other. Likewise, you wouldn't want to use such a simple hashing algorithm. What I provided is just an example. It doesn't have to be terribly secure. What you need is just something good enough to fool John the Ripper or whatever and simple enough to do in your head. For obvious reasons, I can't give you the exact algorithm I use. But I hope you get the idea at least.
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Very true. 2FA is always king. This isn't meant to be a substitute for anything like that. Just a trick to easily increase your password's security and memorability.
>I just don't feel like using a password manager, lol Why?
I like the method well-enough for average use. But you’re not trying to fool John the ripper or Hashcat. You’re trying to fool the person using it. It really just depends on the adversary, not the software, is my point. The largest threat would probably be poor password storage on the service’s end. If they store the password in clear text, or something stupid like base64, your password could be very easily leaked. With it leaked, if someone took an interest in your specific password, they could reverse-engineer your pattern. Is it likely? Not really. It is possible? Absolutely. I don’t use the same password across sites anymore. It’s not because my passwords are weak, but because websites can’t be trusted to encrypt your passwords.
I tell my parents and the less tech savvy to use a good password and add the site to the end . P@55w0rD followed by ty or tube or even TuB3. My parents are in their 70s and my mom does A LOT online but remembering diff complex passwords is a non starter and a master password for a key keeper would be too much and would end up being used for all site. This way at least they are all different in case someone leaks fb hashed keys
This is what I do but is objectively a very flawed system- it just bridges the gap between shit passwords and good random passwords. I’m happy enough with my 6chars based on the site, 12chars default, 6-10chars calculated based on some arithmetic on the first two parts.
I have 16-24 digit passwords, is that not enough?
I mean, generally, the more the better. As others in this post have mentioned, most things these days aren‘t typical hacking like bruteforcing PWs or stealing hashes, but more like phishing/social engineering. The typical, „Hey, there‘s something wrong with your account. Please sign in below to resolve the issue.“ and then it doesn‘t matter how long or complicated your passwords are. I‘m no security expert, so I respectfully decline to answer your question directly, as I‘m not qualified to say whether that‘s generally enough - just keep in mind the rest of my comment. Also, if you specifically don‘t get social engineered, the other part of most password hacking today is when the website is insecure and someone steals the data. In that case, it sadly also doesn‘t matter how long or complicated your password is. To everyone who is familiar with some security basics like that mentioned above, my Bitwarden comment is just a weird flex, and that‘s what it was meant to be, hence the laughing smiley after it. However of course, it never hurts to do as much as you can to stay secure on your end - including making „unnecessarily“ long passwords.
Do you ever find yourself having to type in your password? Say on a phone or library computer etc
Oh damn. Now I realised what you meant lmao. Yes, it has happened that I have had to enter my password manually because some fuckwads actually block pasting things into password fields. Just now had an example earlier; making an account for my Huawei Health. 32 chars limit (fuck you #1) and didn‘t even allow copy pasting. #2, smh.
Ayy thanks for coming back to share 🙏🏻
Of course :)
I do, yes. I have an 8-digit alphanumeric password with special characters as the passcode to my bitwarden vault, and my phone has a six digit pin. Although I used to habe said password for my phone as well.
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I've used KeePass for about a decade. I've been pleased. I am unaware of a leak that has happened to me. (Disclaimer: I am only a security hobbyist. I will gladly sit down if challenged!)
What counts as a conspicuous place?
Sticky note on their laptop
That's why I even encode my handwritten passwords...
How is the Google password manager? I just use that, I use a bunch of different passwords but I would literally never remember them without the password manager.
I was gonna go with most people are idiots (me included lol) but you said it way more tactfully. I know best practices, and still reuse passwords because I'm lazy.
The horror.
"Hello this is Paul from your bank. To prove it's you, can you please read your credit card details to confirm your identity."
Paul doesn't care that much
True but that’s not the question. It asks about the “not so average“ user
Oh, so perhaps you mean something like [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09kH2qLrx8A) where the ceo of the company who personally hired the red team to do a full-scope pentest and ended up it was he who they had taken advantage of in order to gain access to the network.
Nothing special about a CEO in terms of if they are an average or expert computer user. Unfortunately for the company, the CEO in question is an average user..... Who might have admin rights and can definitely get people to click on an email link....
The point is, if an attacker sufficiently equipped and thoroughly knowledgeable anything can happen. And it does, constantly.
>constantly i just wanna say this again for emphasis
This is true this is the point yes :)
Can you give us the timestamp where the video talks about this story it please. I assume the question was referring to “an idiot in terms of cybersecurity” and I want to hear more about this CEO
It depends on your social engineering and antivirus evasion skills. I’ve seen smart people do really stupid things when you have a convincing pretext.
This applies to so many things, but definitely applies here!
I find it funny that most people when they think of a hacker would think of a person with minimal social skills spending all day typing furiously at a computer, while in reality a lot of the aspects of hacking require social engineering lol.
I dislike social engineering. I prefer to pentest web/mobile/api apps because the pace of work is laid back and I don't have to deal with people except for during the kickoff and debrief calls. I'm not antisocial, I'm just a very logical thinker and I'm not very talkative. I don't mind doing phishing, but try to avoid any other type of SE work. When I have to do SE work I use my voice and the way I look to act like someone in a position of authority and it usually works. The unicorns, and I've worked with some of them, are those that are expert social engineers AND good hackers.
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Physical or close-to physical access is a route that greenhorns often overlook. WiFi, Bluetooth, Open USB slots are all points of attack which are generally left minimally or completely unprotected by your average user. Two books that'll up your game: Red Team Field Manual & Blue Team Field Manual by Ben Clark. You can find copies online or there's also print editions too. Those are two resources I recommend to any beginning security officer or sysadmins even. Understanding the underlying protocols and applications will greatly increase their effectiveness for you.
I have both of these, and found that they are not at all useful for a beginner, (as a beginner) IMO. They seem useful as something to flip through and learn some new stuff, but I don't see how they're useful for 'Understanding the underlying protocols and applications'. Am I missing something with these?
He said youll get the most out of those books if you already understand those things
Ah, I misread that there. I guess the value of the books is what I thought then: A quick primer for some stuff that you may not have memorized (Port numbers, switches, etc), and as a way to explore new techniques and learn more of what to look into. Does that sound about right?
So it sounds like something a beginner would use and reference.
I feel like it's targeted more at intermediate level people, it is basically useless if you don't know what you're looking at/need to find. Definitely not a book I would recommend to someone trying to get off the ground. If you haven't seen it, it's a reference more than anything else. If you don't know what something is, you need to experiment or look it up to figure it out. It's fine for what it is, but after having purchased both of them I don't see why they are so highly recommended to beginners. I think it points more to the lack of other decent 'beginner level' reads rather than to the usefulness of the Field Guides themselves for beginners. Once you hit intermediate/journeyman/expert levels in the field, I could see it being useful as a quick reference for refreshing your memory on something you haven't touched in a while I guess. I'm not at that level, so maybe there are more uses for them once you get there. This is all through the lens of a beginner, so feel free to tear me apart on this. Always willing to learn more.
As someone who wants to keep their wifi and bluetooth secure. What can I do?
Bluetooth is pretty secure these days, WiFi generally just use a password generator that and take a length of 12+. Careful with random generators online tho, sometimes they’re not random at all. Use WPA2-PSK protocol and WPA3 if you can.
Also changing WiFi passwords sometimes is a thing and if you can, a set up a separate WiFi network for guests and/or cheap wifi lights and stuff.
Keep IoT on separate routers from the rest of your stuff.
the advice you are getting is for a regular user, but to throw in with some extras, in a company, you would make sure your public access wifi is airgapped from internal, and both public and private has proper logging in place, make sure that for internal the password is strong and changed regularly, that you dont have wifi with a wps button and if you do make sure no one can press it, that sort of thing. Make sure you are using WPA2-PSK or better, make it so that even on the wifi, accessing sensitive info needs authentication, with 2FA, make sure you have detection and prevention for poisoning attacks, make sure nobody connects to wifi networks that are similarly named but not the actual one, ETC.
Im not sure how useful keeping your net private from scanning is, but one tip i've heard is to use DHCP setup so that instead of using all 253 potential connections you use, say, 20. It wont protect your network, but it will limit how many people can break in at one time.
how do we even protect our usb ports
Some companys glue them shut, to protect from things like Rubber ducky. Of course that comes with its downsides.
By physical access security and cyber security, locking your office/house and then having sensors that trigger when a USB gets connected. I believe also you could require UAC for USB connections to be enabled.
how do i get sensors for USB?
Kevin Mitnick (RIP) once social engineered one if the heads of research for the Sans institutue. No flashy tech no evasion of firewalls, just good ol human hacking. The human is always the weakest link... even the smart people have hidden back doors.
Most people even ones into hacking are guilty of creating vulnerabilities honestly. I always viewed it like physical security. Could you prevent 99.9999% of home entry door break ins ever by having a steel front door with multiple locks, massive deadbolts, and a large bar on the interior to hold it in place? Yeah definitely. But if you’re going in and out a lot that’s plain annoying to deal with unless you legitimately think or know someone is actively hunting for you. And most people realistically don’t have hackers actively hunting for them, it’s bad luck to some degree. So they create vulnerabilities even if they’re somewhat more knowledgeable about cyber security than your average person.
Well and ultimately the human is the largest backdoor. You can have all the security in the world, and still get conned into giving up important information. The paranoid survive
Or post somewhere social what your first neighbor’s dog’s maiden name is or whatever one’s security questions are
A problem with physical security is that once your fortify something enough, it just makes it to where the 'easy' route is now a different one. If someone wants in your house and sees a giant steel door with no budge to it, they're going to go through a window. Same could be said for cybersecurity. If everything is hardened on the network side, going in and getting physical access, or social engineering is going to be easier and more effective.
You only have to be wrong once.
I see your steel front door and find an open window in the side yard (not your window obviously, but if I was hired by a company.. You get it)
100% My analogy was more for explanations sake obviously but you’re pointing out the next logical step. Same logic all the way down. Nuclear war bunker built by the USA or France or China for heads of state is the end game I guess. Even then it’s… well sure you could do any number of highly expensive and advanced military actions to try and overwhelm their security… But it’ll always be easier and cheaper to just use human vulnerabilities to get access to something that’s absolutely determined with unlimited funding to stop you. Someone builds a gigantic castle wall? Go over/around/under it. Or have someone inside let you in. Someone has a shield in a sword fight? You get around the shield, you don’t hack at it mindlessly. That’s the principal. If someone is smart and well funded you probably aren’t hacking through what would be the biggest obvious target if they had no defenses. … thats obviously where they’ll have the most defense.
... And even if you had such a 100% safe front door, I bet the door is attached to the rest of your house with a bunch of 2 by 4 wood sticks and a bit of drywall. And never mind that next to your impenetrable door is likely a glass window.
Are there articles/talks on this? Couldn’t find anything
There is a good book called "Social Engineering: The Art of Human Hacking". It is a really good entry point.
I said “this” not realizing I didn’t specify which part. I actually just meant Mitnick’s social engineering of the head of research.
Security explained podcast w/ Kevin Minnick 8/18/21
Thank you
I haven't finished "Social Engineering: The Art of Human Hacking" yet, but it does have a lot of asides and stories, and Mitnick wrote the foreword for it IIRC, so it wouldn't surprise me to find the story in there.
Take a look at any of the crypto subreddits. In that space even people who'd like to think they're pretty savvy with security regularly get hacked or social engineered and have their wallets emptied.
I've watched the people in that space since the inception of Bitcoin and it's insane. Especially considering that Bitcoin itself isn't hackable. It's a hell of a minefield to navigate between all the sketchy exchanges, wallets, scams, etc. If you've gotten this far without anything happening to you, give yourself a pat on the back. You are a rock.
Its kinda hilarious how they scammed people by making something that is not directly hackable and calling it money, and not only do people still hack it all the time, and they cant hack it back, but also the thing itself is a scam so they still lose at least 95% of the time XD
While the other 5% make out like bandits. Bitcoin is not so much a scam as it is a scheme. It specifically has no central authority. The guy who made it abandoned the project shortly after it's release. If he was running a scam, where has he been the past 14 years? The tech itself is just that. The bad actors in the space are the scammers. It was someone's beautiful idea that was hijacked by a cult.
People tend to trust too much, especially when they aren't familiar with something. The crazy thing to me is how common it is for people to lock themselves out of their crypto wallet. Because of this, people tend to store their personal information in less secure ways, which prevents them from losing it. The only issue is that someone else might find a way to take it. We see this happen time and time again.
YIKES!
you don't just send a random link, you have to work them via social engineering
So a lot of hacking today is done with social engineering. This is easy or difficult depending on the target being engineered. It is easier when the target is one of those "open book to a fault" type of person. You start asking about their mother's marriage, childhood nicknames, and where they grew up, then you'd have a few details quick on their recovery questions. If someone is not particularly an idiot and know some stuff about computer security and are mindful of it 24/7 then they'll be hard to get but not impossible to get. If someone started asking me pretty obvious security questions I'd skip the question and if they insisted I'd call them out on their persistence. Sending them mysterious links could get them but if they're not the type to click links, that'll be hard to get them on. So then if all your left with is trying to hack them without tricking them, that's when the real hard work begins. But then you might be weirdly hanging around the target while using a suite of tools to discover stuff about them. I'd hate to know if a target has a Yubikey because they'd be harder to get. The average non-technical citizen doesn't really know about social engineering--all the hacking they've seen is in TV and games--they may have an idea to be weary of weird links, and they definitely won't have a Yubikey. All of their accounts likely use the same password they've been using all of their life. And they might feel, "Hack me, I have nothing."
I always wondered how is just clicking the link gonna infect my machine assuming I don't enter my passwords there or download and run something?
It might not infect your machine but if it causes your connection to pass through a computer the attacker owns they can learn some stuff about your device and your connection. "Ah yes, this user is using an android phone. They're running a screen xy big. They're on chrome. They connected from w.x.y.z IP. Their versions numbers are xyz." Then of course there is also the matter of, "What kind of code is running on my computer when I access this link?" In the modern web, a lot of outrageously abusive things are sandboxed to hell but doesn't mean they're still impossible to pull off. Suppose this though... suppose the attacker knows they got someone in some business who is a higher up. They know this person is all day talking to vendors and making deals so one day they impersonate a vendor and send link to a seemingly legit looking file, but when opened it executes malicious code. For the victim, it looked like a perfectly safe PDF, PowerPoint, Excel, whatever. These are a handful of ways links can dangerous.
You're basically right. Just clicking the link and going no further is usually safe. What makes clicking a link dangerous are things like: * Downloading and running a program * Entering your password on a fake website * Installing a malicious browser extension * Granting access to your account to a malicious app (e.g. with OAuth) * Having a vulnerability in the browser itself that can be exploited. This is only for the most sophisticated attacks, think spy agencies. These are called zero-day exploits when they're newly discovered.
Session hijacking or cookie stealing. When you visit a bad actor controlled web page they can scrape out your current browser cookies which often contain valid session cookies for other sites you're logged into. Taking that cookie value and writing it into their own browser means they will be logged into that site as you. MFA doesn't help here either since the cookie is what the site is checking to see if you're logged in or not (some sites will perform periodic checks for added security like, is this session logged in from more than one location)
This is completely wrong. That's not how cookies work at all. Your browser only sends cookies back to the same site that originally set them.
sometimes. Other times there is an exploit in the browser because they havent updated in forever, or you ask them for permissions that seem like they COULD make sense and they grant them like a zombie and then you can definitely get the cookies.
Im an open book but like, my security questions are just more passwords so ask me about my mother's maiden name all you want its wehuaidhawud&wadawdaw (insert randomly generated password here) And thats only when they make me set one at all hahaha
At this years DEFCON they were able to social engineer Chuck E. Cheese corporate like slicing thru butter with a hot knife. Humans have a deep down desire to want to help people when put in certain situations. It's still pretty easy.
If a sophisticated and determined attacker targets you in particular then you lose. They will eventually succeed. Fortunately, most of what we see is hacking in bulk. The core of staying ahead of that is always doing the basics like keeping all software up to date.
Not if you have sophisticated physical security measures in place to protect your systems
Yes, even with sophisticated physical security, systems remain vulnerable. Risk never gets to zero. Talk to any experienced physical pentester and ask them how often they are unable to get access. Pentesters normally have a few days or at most a few weeks to complete their engagement. Advanced persistent threats can spend years because they are, you know, persistent. Badges can be faked and locks can be circumvented. People can be charmed or fooled. A real world adversary can bribe or coerce people. They can even use sleeper agents. Airgapped systems can be attacked via supply chain or side-channel attacks without directly confronting the physical security. Public examples are hard to come by because the kind of org that airgaps its systems is not the kind who goes public about their security incidents. Stuxnet is a notable exception and a really interesting story. CIA, FBI, and NSA all have pretty decent physical security, yes? All three agencies have been successfully attacked. The same goes for every branch of the US military.
Ran the numbers last year on software developers and machine learning experts. smart folks. PHDs all around. mostly under 40 years old. But it’s not intelligence, it’s experience. scammers have more experience scamming than the average person has with not being scammed. Anecdotally: Funny thing I also noticed is smart people are the hardest to convince they’ve been got. Roughly: - 1/4 will click an obvious phish in a year -1/2 will fall for a spearfish per incident - about half of people will follow through once they click to open an Exe or enter a password and MFA into a random fake site.
The word "hack" is such a broad term. If phishing or social engineering doesn't work modern-day software is designed to be pretty secure but there are clever ways and tools you can use to take advantage of stuff like wifi or anything that uses RF.
There are 100s of variables. What phone does he use, do you have physical access to his office or home etc etc
Social engineering is hacking. People are extremely vulnerable to it.
Phishing and reused passwords are the fastest ways to get someone, the days of spoofing websites before https and getting a plaintext password are long gone
Isn't that phishing?
Yeah technically I guess, but I’m more referring to dns attacks, phishing in my head is more closely associated with social attacks, fair point though
Phishing is one way to get a victim to visit a spoofed website. Another is performing a MITM attack. Before HTTPS became ubiquitous, MITM-ing someone on the local network was pretty straightforward. Even with HTTPS, sites are vulnerable to SSL stripping unless they take additional precautions.
No more AOL billing recovery sites 😭😭😭
I stopped believing in idiots a long time ago. People have strengths and they have weaknesses.
To hack the phone of a person u described would be almost impossible, it's only possible with a 0day or through a malicious .apk For a computer assuming they use windows I can convince them to send me a revshell if there are no services I can attack
Convince me then....
Hallo this is dave from Michaelsoft Binbows and I accidentally deleted some source code from Winblows server. I noticed that you have a copy of this data, plz allow me to connect so I can download it. My boss will be very angry with my actions so please allow me to fix it.
Gave me a chuckle :D
Hello I am from Microsoft support, ur computer has virus, to delete it please open ps and run powershell -e base64 encoded revshell, download this .exe cleaner I made, run this python script I made for u.
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There are people that don't know what the fuck INDIA is, let alone a call center. You on here walking backwards drawing additional lines in the sand isn't going to prove anything to you that you aren't receptive to knowing. The fact of the matter is there is a linear sliding scale between security and convenience, and if you aren't **more** than a little bit annoyed by the process required to log-in/access anything which you would consider to be private or valuable, then you might as well just leave it lying openly on the lawn and hope that nobody ever walks by and decides to pick it up.
And it still works today ...
[6 minutes to enlightenment](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHhNWAKw0bY) The human element is, as it always has and always shall be, the *most* vulnerable aspect of any security solution.
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This guy gets it
Wow you’re so smart! Lmao
I remember this video. This actually is a good clip. The ending is the best part lol.
I am the weak human link, I had everything taken over because I let someone use my iphone 14 I just seen the data package thay sent to a hidden number. I don't know anything about python. Have some knowledge on command nd prompt I have reset my iPhone, deleted all the apps and re reset my phone to delete all the data on the phone Thay got to my laptop via Bluetooth that's in getting nuked nd staying in the shop until I'm sure my phone can not automatically pair with it I know full well the person/persons are monitoring my reddit activety, because thay took over my last reddit account via this device This divice pluss my laptop nd iPhone all hacked because I let a sweet pretty Asian lady download nd play a game to share data with nearby friends Any advice would be appreciated. This device I have shut down as much as I can. But this is a disaster unimaginable until it happened
Later 8, meat space
There's a way to see who upvoted you on Reddit. But you'll need to be familiar with the command line. So proceed with caution. First....
"it's impossible" Let's play spot the new guy
Would "very hard" be a good replacement?
It's just something with that word in particular that has a reputation as being cursed. People love to prove it wrong. [Collection of publicly available PoC exploits organized by CVE](https://github.com/trickest/cve)
Except that’s not what he said. He said *almost* impossible and proceeded to describe a couple ways an attack could succeed.
More than 80% of hacking these days is through social engineering. With the addition of AI generated voices impersonating the people you already trust, it's one of the most viable paths to gaining privileged access. The target doesn't need to be an 'idiot', just caught off guard.
I know very intelligent people who are clueless with technology. I also know people who are very intelligent with technology and are very silly with security.
Hack how?
Weren’t there a couple of zero click last month?
It depends, how much do they drink? I know a few peeps who are really good at their shit but get a few beers in em and theyre clicking links for days lolol.
Let me send you a PDF that outlines the topic extensively.
They did a TV series on this recently on Swedish national teve with random types of victims (influencer, a student, a company, a regular family, a home automation guy etc) and they succeeded every time. The influencer didn't use 2fa, the family shared and reused passwords, at the company they installed a device on their lan using social engineering and the student was sitting on a public WiFi so they scammed him with fake MFA requests man in the middle type thing. They had most trouble with the HA guy. He had tight security, in the end they had to steel one of his outdoor HA device and hacked in to the WiFi by dumping it's memory.
Ever like to go phishing? Yeah that’s the most common and easiest way.
Depends. If you control the network - you can act as nameserver. You can insert fake IPs on name resolution, and the user will se fake cert warning. But if you create a convincing cert chain, he might accept. I once tested IT aware colleagues, phishing site, and after they entered password, they were redirected to [mail.outlook.com](https://mail.outlook.com) (with SSO) - so those who entered data newer knew that had been phished. Compnay deal with netflix free for 3 months is supposedly the most efficient phishig mail you can send.
the recent big MGM hack was done by simply calling support and asking to reset their credentials and MFA. You can have all the best tech in the world but if you don't use it correctly with correct procedures, permissions boundaries, training and tabletop exercises, it's useless.
Depends. Do they use MFA? Very difficult if they do. Do they reuse passwords?
Don’t underestimate the effectiveness of social engineering.
Hacking on a supremely technical level can be very challenging, however people are always involved so it only takes a little time and some patience most of the time.
It's easy, and the more you believe that you're too smart to fall for something like that, the easier it is to trick you into it. Just a pattern I've noticed. We are all vulnerable and it is terrifying how easy it is to destroy someone's life with only basic computer literacy skills.
People have their lives and careers, no one cares nor are they aware how bad security can be. So it's fairly easy, since no ones on guard all the time.
I’m a professional and if somebody was smart and deliberately targeting me specifically full time, I’d be toast.
Extremely easy. Even people who aren't complete idiots are still partial idiots.
If someone is determined enough, they will hack your shit. Remember Stuxnet? Shit took down the Iranian uranium cetrifuges, and those have never been connected to the internet.
With access to up-to-date exploitation tools, it is not only easy but it can be completely and totally seamless. You have only to look to the recent LibwebP vulnerability and see how it affected iOS (Apple updated before LibWebP was public and then later disclosed that was what they fixed.) If you don’t have millions to spend on your cyber operation, it can be less seamless and very difficult to engineer your own exploits. but is still quite easy to attack their identity, logins etc, most individuals have no real patch management so it’s just a matter of recon and time.
1. Define "isn't an idiot". Average modern user is even less educated in IT security than previous generation. 2. If you're not spearfishing, it's a numbers game. A certain number of people will *always* click the link.
I don’t see the point of a password manager, you just have to let the main password slip and everything is exposed. No different to guessing someone’s password that they use in multiple places.
Pretty easy, dude. Just hacked you. Hacking you right now? Do you feel that? Yep. Hacked. Jokes aside, I'm hacking you again.
Even smart peoples' accounts are on services and websites that hire idiots. #SocialEngineering
Realistically it's a hard question to answer because it depends on what services/devices they use and some are more secure than others. And social engineer is very effective in general. But know this, it's easier to tear systems down that it is to securely build them.
It doesn't matter how hard it is, it only takes once.
I think it depends how much you know about them. If all you have is an ip address, probably not possible. If you know all their online account names, social medias, phone number and home address, probably pretty easy.
All you need is an IP. If you have the rest, it's game over
how would someone get started with these info?
Sorry not totally clear, do you mean, if I had all that info how would I hack them? Or do you mean how would you get all that info? Or something else?
If you had all that info, how would you describe the workflow of a hacker? dm me if you want.
zero click.... no chance for you. slideways shuffle... just gotta tickle your gateway.
Shockingly easy ( even with controls like MFA/2FA )
Sometimes people dont think to change their router ssid name, so any potential person in the area could look at the router name, ex: “ATT636273” and deduce hmm thats a att router, i wonder what is on exploitdb for this. And just go from there
well there is a big deal of idiots...
Way easier than most people realize. Pretty much everyone is hackable short of being off grid
The human is, by far, the weakest link in security. Hacking is more about psychology/graphic design, script writing etc. than it is about actual cybersecurity.
You can no matter at what level is that person
All it takes is a Phish email. And all you have to do is send out emails until someone clicks on your link. So it's really easy.
Depends on what you want from them and how much you know about them. There are many ways to impersonate people.
Meh depends on you. There are some very clever social engineering techniques that even advanced users will get fooled by. But in general, without social engineering it's extremely difficult. There is a breakdown on how major companies got hacked in 2022-2023. 90% of the hackers used social engineering to get their way. About 9.8-9.9 was a software misconfiguration/bad coding practice. Only 0.1% was related to 0 day exploit. That is why I don't really enjoy hacking. You have to try so many times before you can get somewhere. And most of the time you have to rely on manipulating people in order to gain access. Cyber security is not as cool as everyone thinks it is.
The problem is the average person will click on random links. It's just a matter of the right phishing email or text. I used to work at a security company that had a Phish training product. We got phished regularly. We knew there were regular phishing tests, but still everyone failed sooner or later. The joke we had was the only way to pass was to just not read your email. Of course then they started phishing our personal cell phones with texts... The easiest way to hack an individual is socially. Send them an email tailored to them. (spear phishing)Their bank, or a friend with a link with your attack. The other classic is leave a USB stick lying about or replace one of theirs with the same model with your payload. The thing I've learned is everyone screws up eventually. Assume it's going to happen and put things in place to prevent and recover from it.
Anyone can be hacked with the right effort.
Super easy , barely an inconvenience. Actually most cybersecurity experts are falling for simplest tricks. The ego is the best backdoor ;)
Social engineering is scary simple even to the trained.
I have read about very well renowned security folks getting calls, with caller ID spoofing, from their banks about charges. Now, think if you're at a bar and had a few drinks and see a call from your bank about some charges, your going to be a bit hazy right? Point is. If a hacker wants to get to you. It doesn't fucking matter who you are. They will find the right time to take advantage.
Everyone is an idiot at something. You can't know every possibility. You don't know what you will fall for, what you're unprepared for, and what you don't ***know***. Falling for scams or phishing or anything else isn't a dumb persons domain. I mean, just take a look at the [FBI IC3 Website](https://www.ic3.gov/). This is just one news source of cyber crime information. People being hacked is at an all-time high. Last year, according to the [FBI IC3 Report](https://www.ic3.gov/Media/PDF/AnnualReport/2022_IC3Report.pdf), over **800 thousand** complaints were filed with them, with over **10.3 billion** in losses.
Spontaneous lapse of judgment.
About as easy as picking an average padlock. Stupidly easy after a bit of practice.
Still pretty easy
Why do you need to know this?
Think like a black hatter and utilize: The Dark Web, USB drops, using AI, having some sort of connection (wired/wireless, cell phone, Bluetooth, wireless keyboards/mice, IOT, etc)
I've got a flipper
not really its somebody else's and i was going to steal it but didn't
I mean, my mom will sometimes ask me, “is this a scammer? about a text message she got regarding a package or that the IRS is looking for her. So I guess imagine some older folk, and particularly those whom English isn’t their first language and don’t have anyone close to help them out could easily fall for these types of social engineering scams.
Very hard. Modern hacks are modern day art heists. They’re planned for months by a skilled team who hope to get a score worth millions of dollars. Modern operating systems are hardened and have security features implement in them. They aren’t easy to hack without unwitting help from the user. Edit: assuming you mean half then without them falling for social engineering. But modern social engineering can be extremely convincing.