alt Hacker NewsWhen we did annual pen testing audits for my last company, the security audit company always offered to do phishing or social engineering attacks, but advised against it because they said it worked every single time.
One of the most memorable things they shared is they'd throw USB sticks in the parking lot of the company they were pentesting and somebody would always put the thing into a workstation to see what as on it and get p0wned.
Phishing isn't really that different.
Great reminder to setup Passkeys: https://help.x.com/en/managing-your-account/how-to-use-passk...
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Our company does regular phishing attacks against our own team, which apparently gets us a noteworthy 90% ‘not-click’ rate (don’t quote me on numbers).
Never mind that that 10% is still 1500 people xD
It’s gone so far that they’re now sending them from our internal domains, so when the banner to warn me it was an external email wasn’t there, I also got got.
If you are getting powned by running random executables found on usb drives, passkeys aren’t going to save you. Same if the social engineering is going to get you to install random executables.
Once a head of security worked for me (CTO), and she was great great great. She did the same, putting USB sticks on the printers for example and see who would plug one into their computer.
The stray USB stick is how Stuxnet allegedly got deployed. Tbh I doubt that works in this day and age.
I've seen someone do a live, on stage demo of phishing audit software, where they phished a real company, and showed what happens when someone falls for it.
Live. On stage. In minutes. People fall for it so reliably that you can do that.
When we ran it we got fake vouchers for "cost coffee" with a redeem link, new negative reviews of the company on "trustplot" with a reply link, and abnormal activity on your "whatapp" with a map of Russia, and a report link. They were exceptionally successful even despite the silly names.
>they'd throw USB sticks in the parking lot of the company they were pentesting and somebody would always put the thing into a workstation to see what as on it and get p0wned.
One of my favorite quotes is from an unnamed architect of the plan in a 2012 article about Stuxnet/the cyber attacks on Iran's nuclear program:
"It turns out there is always an idiot around who doesn't think much about the thumb drive in their hand."