Social Engineering resources

[Anonymous]

As as supplement to the Social Engineering course I recommend reading The Art of Human Hacking by Chris Hadnagy.

Anyone have some other resources to suggest?

[TerumoParticipant]

Hi.
Thanks for advice. I saw that book and got interested on it, but didn’t know that the author was the creator of SET.

There is a great book about social engineering called “The Art of Deception”, by Kevin Mitnick, and another great book (that even not being 100% about social engineering) is “Unauthorized Access” by Will Allsopp (this book covers physical penetration testing, and uses lots of tricks about entering restricted areas, most of them based on social engineering principles).

A tool I would like to sugest for this course is “Casefile”. Similar to Maltego (also by Paterva), it allows you to join pieces of intelligence that you gather offline, like places, items, and almost anything that is not online, to see what connects people (do they all go to the same church? Same restaurant? Same work?…)
Although Maltego is a great tool, it’s restricted to online information. If you want to join pieces of offline information (that you can also cross with online information), try Casefile. Both programs work with the same type of file, so you can import data from one to another. Casefile is more used by police, since most intelligence gathering is made “on the field”, and it’s related to offline stuff.

[Anonymous]

@terumo – I was looking at the wrong book. David Kennedy wrote “Metasploit, the Pentration Tester’s Guide” and was the creator of SET. Chris Hadnagy wrote “The Art of Human Hacking”.

“The Art of Deception” by Kevin Mitnick is a good book for the phone aspect of the Social Engineering audit.

Sorry about the mistake. Too many books on the coffee table.

[Anonymous]

@terumo – Thanks for pointing out the Casefile application and “Unauthorized Access”

[TerumoParticipant]

@d0jooffensive it’s okay. Thanks for the correction.
There is no such think as “too many books” 😉

[Anonymous]

There are a number of books titled “Unauthorized Access”. Here’s the link to the book @teruma was referring to Unauthorized Access by Will Allsopp

[invivoParticipant]

Thanks!! I will most def have to get hold of a copy of “Unauthorized Access” by Will Allsopp
This is about general manipulation
–> http://aguidetomanipulation.tumblr.com/

[Anonymous]

@invivo – Thanks. I’ll check it out.

[TerumoParticipant]

Yes, that is the book. I didn’t put the link because i indicated the author. Thanks for it @d0jooffensive

I work in the field of private security, and sometimes i have to guard sensitive buildings (from government, public transports, telecomunication (ISP) buildings, etc). Many of those things described in that book, i saw them with my own eyes and I know they work. If you really know physical security, that book can give nightmares to any good security staff.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 2 months ago by  Terumo.

[Anonymous]

@terumo – I just added the link to make it easier for anyone else that comes onto the thread.

BTW CaseFile comes installed on Kali Sana at Applications -> Reporting Tools -> casefile

I’m glad you mentioned it. Thanks much.

[TerumoParticipant]

Not only in Kali Sana. The Kali Motto (1.1.0 version) already had it (its the version I use), and is also easy to install in windows.
Maltego is widely known (specially by IT people) because its great to give a graphical view of a network, or virtual social network. Casefile is less known (its rare to find people that use it) except if you deal with law enforcement or the intelligence community.
For me, is one of the best tools for information gathering, especially social engineering, because social engineering is more like a “people skill” and less like “computer skill”, and there are lots of non-virtual information that can be used. That offline information is most of the times hard to order or give it a graphical presentation for you to analyze.
Casefile fills those gaps, being used to combine virtual with real life information, and being easier to use than Maltego (its easier to understand how to use Casefile because there are no transformations).

[Anonymous]

@terumo – It looked interesting. I can certainly see how it would be great at mapping relationships, events to individuals, etc..

Similar products that compliment each other IMHO.

[TerumoParticipant]

@d0jooffensive yes, that is exactly it.
The only problems I see in Maltego is that is limited (free version) in number of results, and its more USA centered (if you are searching something in a bit more remote country in Europe, you will get even less results). The less technological country has less databases and online infrastructure, so it limits you, forcing you to search in other ways.

[Anonymous]

@terumo – the last sentence regarding lesser developed countries and that resulting in different tactics makes a lot of sense. If the databases used are more focused on the IS I can certainly see the limitations there in certain scenarios.

[TerumoParticipant]

@d0jooffensive Its a matter of habit. Tactics makes sense in every hacking aspect, and social engineering is no different. Sometimes is not even you living in a less technological developed country, but your “target” does… When you have to do international research, you get a bit of everything. I reached a point of sometimes, needing to make my own tools, due to lack of proper databases. Even if you use great Google Hacking skills, Maltego, etc, without proper databases, is very frustrating.

[Anonymous]

@terumo – i guess thats why there are entire agencies dedicated to intelligence gathering;) I can see how this phase could take months depending on the theater and the operation.

[TerumoParticipant]

@d0jooffensive yes, most of the times can take huge amounts of time and resources.
Sometimes (example of less technological developed countries), not even the Intelligence agencies have resources- If there is no database, for them is hard too. Imagine a country where police can’t even check in real-time, with a simple push of a button, if the car plates match or not (in technological countries you have databases for almost everything)… And when dealing with international, because of lack of police cooperation, access can be restricted and take even more time (for example searching legal precedents of foreign citizen takes about 3x more time than checking the same for national citizen).
With those scenarios, your option is finding a common data pattern, and you make your own tool to analyze the data.

[Anonymous]

I would think that if you are pentesting a multinational corporation or nation state that there are specific reconnaissance teams and thats ALL they do.

[TerumoParticipant]

Yes, when you are pentesting huge multinational corporations they have recon teams for gathering intelligence, but knowing the databases, and having some accesses to that type of data can help you researching employees or even top administration faster (again from the social engineering point of view).
If you stand by the parking lot, taking note of some car plates, with some database access it can do wonders for your recon 😉

[ChamboParticipant]

Just sharing this brief article which does have reference to Social Engineering: The Art of Human Hacking

http://time.com/2941302/4-powerful-things-con-men-can-teach-you-about-persuasion/

[Author]

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