Social-Engineering Experiment
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Social-Engineering Experiment Master's Thesis Marco Studer [email protected] System Security Group Institute of Information Security ETH Zurich Supervisors: Dr. Raphael Reischuk Prof. Dr. Srdjan Capkun August 13, 2018 i The icons used to indicate quotes and mitigation strategies appear under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license at https://fontawesome.com/license. No changes were made to the icons. Full credit is given to FontAwesome. Acknowledgements I thank Raphael Reischuk for his tireless effort and for the immense amount of time he invested in me and the project. His enthusiasm motivated me throughout the project. He taught me countless things and was more friend than supervisor. I thank hYuuBluei for giving me the opportunity to write this thesis. I cost hYuuBluei and its employees a lot of time and nerves. I am thankful for their patience and for being so understanding. ii Abstract Social engineering, the act of manipulating people into committing actions ben- eficial to an attacker (and most likely detrimental to the manipulated target), is as old as time itself and is likely to remain a dangerous threat to organizations and individuals alike | especially today, in times where information is more valuable than ever before. In order to better understand the implications of social engineering, this thesis constitutes research on social engineering in the context of an internation- ally operating organization. More specifically, the thesis presents the planning and execution of various social-engineering attacks that were performed over the course of approximately two months. All attacks were conducted without any insider knowledge about the targeted organization. None of the employees knew of the attacks, except for two members of management who approved and supported the project. The findings include weaknesses regarding (i) the access to physical assets, (ii) the application of business processes, and (iii) the disclosure of confiden- tial information, such as bank account numbers and salary statements; names, positions, and email addresses of employees; as well as network and account passwords. These findings convincingly demonstrate that neither a formal education nor experience in the field of social engineering is required to successfully attack an international organization. iii Contents Acknowledgements ii Abstract iii Part I Ab Origine1 1 Introduction1 1.1 Why This Thesis? .......................... 1 1.2 The Company............................. 2 1.3 The Employees............................ 3 1.4 A Note on Preserving the Anonymity................ 3 1.5 What to Expect from This Thesis ................. 4 1.6 Security Disclaimer.......................... 4 2 Definitions5 2.1 Social Engineering .......................... 5 2.1.1 Phishing............................ 8 2.1.2 Vishing ............................ 8 2.1.3 Pretexting........................... 9 2.1.4 Water Holing......................... 9 2.1.5 Baiting ............................ 10 2.1.6 Tailgating / Piggybacking.................. 10 2.1.7 Dumpster Diving....................... 11 2.1.8 Shoulder Surfing....................... 11 2.2 Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT)................. 11 2.3 Malware................................ 12 2.4 Denial of Service (DoS) ....................... 13 2.5 Man-in-the-Middle Attack (MitM) ................. 13 iv Contents v 2.6 Look-Alike Domain.......................... 13 2.7 Metasploit Framework........................ 14 2.7.1 Meterpreter.......................... 14 2.8 Shell.................................. 15 2.9 Zero-Day Vulnerability........................ 15 2.10 Regular Expression.......................... 16 2.11 Antivirus Software.......................... 16 2.11.1 Signature-based Detection.................. 17 2.11.2 Behavior-based Detection.................. 17 2.11.3 Antivirus Detection Evasion Techniques.......... 18 2.12 Intrusion Detection System (IDS).................. 19 2.13 Greylisting .............................. 20 2.14 Sender Policy Framework (SPF) And Its Successors . 20 3 Preparation 23 3.1 Virtual Private Server........................ 23 3.2 Creating Fake Email Accounts ................... 25 3.3 Creating a Payload.......................... 27 3.3.1 Evading Antivirus Software................. 27 3.3.2 Custom Payload ....................... 28 3.4 Creating a Malicious Word Document ............... 28 4 Sources of Information 30 4.1 Email Addresses ........................... 30 4.1.1 Via the Company Website.................. 30 4.1.2 Via LinkedIn......................... 33 4.2 Subdomains via DNS Enumeration................. 34 4.3 Availability via Out-of-Office Replies................ 34 4.4 Names and Maps via YouTube ................... 35 4.5 Organigram via the Company Website............... 35 4.6 Information via Social Media Networks............... 36 Contents vi Part II Acta Non Verba 37 5 Attack Categorization and Overview 38 5.1 Unexecuted Attacks ......................... 40 6 SED04: The Mass Phishing 42 6.1 Preparation.............................. 42 6.2 Execution History .......................... 45 6.3 Findings and Post-Execution Insights ............... 53 7 SED07: The Name Inquiry 60 7.1 Preparation.............................. 60 7.2 Execution History .......................... 61 7.3 Findings and Post-Execution Insights ............... 65 8 SED09: The OoO Stress Scam 66 8.1 Preparation.............................. 66 8.2 Execution History .......................... 67 8.3 Findings and Post-Execution Insights ............... 72 9 SED11: The Leaver 74 9.1 Preparation.............................. 74 9.2 Execution History .......................... 76 9.3 Findings and Post-Execution Insights ............... 80 10 SED12: The OoO Provoker 82 10.1 Preparation.............................. 82 10.2 Execution History .......................... 85 10.3 Findings and Post-Execution Insights ............... 89 11 SED13: The CV Crawler 92 11.1 Preparation.............................. 92 11.2 Execution History .......................... 93 11.3 Findings and Post-Execution Insights ............... 94 Contents vii 12 SED15: The Customer Summary 95 12.1 Preparation.............................. 95 12.2 Execution History .......................... 96 12.3 Findings and Post-Execution Insights ............... 98 13 SED16: Attack from Within 99 13.1 Preparation.............................. 99 13.2 Execution History .......................... 100 13.3 Findings and Post-Execution Insights . 102 14 SED18: The Flash Mob 104 14.1 Preparation.............................. 104 14.2 Execution History .......................... 105 14.3 Findings and Post-Execution Insights . 107 15 SED19: Orders from Above 109 15.1 Preparation.............................. 109 15.2 Execution History .......................... 110 15.3 Findings and Post-Execution Insights . 111 16 SEP01: The Fake Invoice 112 16.1 Preparation.............................. 112 16.2 Execution History .......................... 113 16.3 Findings and Post-Execution Insights . 117 17 SEP02: The Security Interview 118 17.1 Preparation.............................. 118 17.2 Execution History .......................... 119 17.3 Findings and Post-Execution Insights . 119 18 SEP03: The Anniversary 121 18.1 Preparation.............................. 121 18.2 Execution History .......................... 123 18.3 Findings and Post-Execution Insights . 126 Contents viii 19 SEP04: The Market Research Insitute 128 19.1 Preparation.............................. 128 19.2 Execution History .......................... 129 19.3 Findings and Post-Execution Insights . 130 Part III Ad Meliora 132 20 Summary of Findings 133 20.1 Data.................................. 133 20.2 General Findings and Interpretation . 134 20.3 Weaknesses .............................. 140 21 Mitigation and Countermeasures 146 21.1 A Culture of Security Awareness .................. 146 21.2 Plans, Protocols, and Procedures.................. 147 21.3 Educate, Drill, Repeat........................ 153 22 Closing Remarks 154 Glossary 156 List of Mitigations 159 Bibliography 160 A Code A-1 B PDF Documents B-1 B.1 SED11: The Leaver ......................... B-2 B.2 SED19: Orders from Above..................... B-3 B.3 SEP01: The Fake Invoice ...................... B-4 B.4 SEP02: The Security Interview................... B-5 Part I Ab Origine From the Beginning 1 Chapter 1 Introduction The importance of security grows more and more in a world where information is omnipresent and powerful, where all the knowledge of the world is at one's fingertip, and where having information about the person opposite is an invalu- able asset. For all the good the so-called \Information Age" has done us, it has also opened the doors to our very living room, for everyone who cares to look. Organized crime scaled stealing and selling information into a multi-billion dollar business and pretty much every company is a target. This Master's thesis, dubbed Social-Engineering Experiment (SOEP), analyzes at how valuable information can be stolen from companies and how companies can protect themselves. A number of methods and attack schemes have been executed in a real environment, targeting an international corporation. Every step was meticulously documented, starting with the preparation and going all the way to the execution. 1.1 Why This Thesis? In the last years, the number of sizable information and identity breaches has increased steadily. With the number of breaches, the average