CSC448 Blogging, Week 6, part two

[scarfman]

What are some "social engineering" techniques. Have you ever been targeted? Give an example.

One day a few months ago I clicked on an email whose subject line claimed it was notification of an e-card from [my mother's first name]. Now, I should have known better, because when I do get an e-card from my mother it's signed "Mom". But I clicked on it, and I clicked on the link in it, and I don't remember where I ended up but if I'd ended up at an e-card I'd prolly remember now.

A little later, an hour or a day, I noticed that there were two mIRC buttons on my task bar when, as far as I knew, I'd only opened one mIRC window. I clicked on the other button but (I don't remember this incident well enough to blog about it, actually) either the window wouldn't unminimize or, when it unminimized, it was scrolling machine code instead of my chat and I couldn't close the window/program. I had to shut down the computer to get rid of that mIRC window, but once I'd done that it didn't come back as far as I know. When I asked my mother, of course, she'd not sent me anything.

Comments

Heeeeeere's Skynet!

[athelind.livejournal.com]

When someone pointed out this story to me, I immediately remembered your post about "social engineering" and malware that APPEARED to be gone.

Oddly enough, Storm isn't doing much, so far, except gathering strength. Aside from continuing to infect other Windows machines and attacking particular sites that are attacking it, Storm has only been implicated in some pump-and-dump stock scams. There are rumors that Storm is leased out to other criminal groups. Other than that, nothing.