...purpose of this paper. To make sure how important systems security is to our country. In 2001 and 2002 Gary McKinnon hacked into US military computer networks. He Deleted important files in the operating systems in the US army’s district in Washington. Shutting down 2000 computers for 24 hours. He deleted weapons logs and crashed 300 computers for munition’s delivery to the US NAVY. He also broke into NASA networks to search for evidence of UFO cover-ups. In 2009, Albert Gonzalez helped steal about 36 million credit card numbers from TJX ,which cost the company about 160 million Dollars. Literature Review Social engineering is a practice of obtaining confidential information by manipulating users in social communication. In The Art of Deception: Controlling the Human Element of Security by Kevin Mitnick. The Book talks about social engineering and how it is used to gain information in financial, manufacturing, medical, and legal companies to gain access to their networks. I thought this book was important reading for company’s...
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...Kevin Mitnick – Social Engineering and Computer Hacking Mastermind Shelby Descoteaux Professor Kabay IS 340 A Nov. 22, 2013 Table of Contents Introduction 3 Kevin Mitnick 3 Hackers and Their Motives 3 The Early Years 4 Adolescence 5 Kevin in Trouble 6 Kevin’s Final Visit from the FBI 7 Hacker or Engineer? 8 Impact on Computer Security 8 Conclusion 9 Works Cited 10 Introduction Most people today are aware of the detrimental risk that hackers pose to their computers. They might know about identity theft, viruses, Trojans and worms however what they fail to recognize is how these things are accomplished and if they have actually fallen victim to one of these horrible attacks. But what about attacks with even greater impacts…like someone hacking into the computer system of a car that controls the brakes? Perhaps penetrating the systems that control nuclear power plants? Although it seems unlikely that either of these extremely scary scenarios would ever happen, it is most definitely possible. One researcher for IBM’s Internet Security Systems told the owners of a nuclear power station that he could hack into their system through the Internet. The power station took this as a joke, responding to Scott Lunsford, the IBM researcher, with a laugh in his face saying that it was “impossible”. In response, Scott took up the power plant on their words and proved them wrong. In less than twenty-four hours, Scott’s team had infiltrated the system and in...
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...“You could spend a fortune purchasing technology and services...and your network infrastructure could still remain vulnerable to old-fashioned manipulation.” Kevin Mitnick [4] Social engineering is one of the ways hackers get an access to sensitive information, such as passwords, access codes, credit card numbers, etc. Instead of breaking into a computer system, the persuasive hackers trick people into giving up the information on their own. [1] According to the Security and Risk website, social engineering attacks are very costly for businesses. For example, once hackers get the needed log in information, they can then spy on an organization’s activity and transactions. Annually, an organization can lose thousands of dollars on such attacks. New employees are the primary victims that become the prey of hackers via phishing emails and social networking sites. [2] The most common method of social engineering attacks is phishing or spam scams. The victim receives an urgent email where he or she asked to follow a link to verify the account number or any other “important” data. Hackers use well known organizations and banks’ logos and these kinds of emails are very convincing. There are different variations to this method, though. Instead of phony emails, a victim can receive a phony call from an “authority” or an IT specialist that tries to get the sensitive information from a victim. Also, there are different variations to it when hackers pretend to be some...
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