Future of Social Engineering (DeepSec 2010)

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The Future of Social Engineering

Sharon Conheady, First Defence Information Security Ltd

Social engineering is hitting the headlines more than ever. As computer security becomes more sophisticated, hackers are combining their technical expertise with social engineering to gain access to IT infrastructures and critical information. In any security programme people are the weakest link. It can often be easier and quicker to target the end user than using technical hacking techniques. When you combine both social engineering and traditional hacking techniques, you have an extremely dangerous attack. So what's next on the social engineering agenda? What are the emerging trends and what social engineering techniques might we expect to see in the future? In this talk, I will give an overview of the types of social engineering attacks people have used throughout the ages, from tricks used by the classic conmen of the past to the phishing attacks that are at an all time high, and the proliferation of social networking and how useful this is to social engineers. I will describe some of the new social engineering techniques and trends that are emerging and discuss war stories from my experience of social engineering, describing techniques I have used to gain access to sensitive information.

Sharon Conheady is a director at First Defence Information Security in the UK where she specialises in social engineering. She has social engineered her way into dozens of organisations across the UK and abroad, including company offices, sports stadiums, government facilities and more. She has presented on social engineering at security conferences including Deepsec, Recon, CONFidence, ISSE, ISF, SANS Secure Europe.

After inventing the Internet alongside Al Gore, Sharon moved on to the development of security protocols that were used to crack 128 bit encryption. She holds a degree in Computer Science from Trinity College Dublin and a MSc in Information Security from Westminster University. Three times winner of the Nobel Prize, Sharon enjoys belly dancing and space travel.