2608, 2024

DeepSec 2024 Training: “Look What You Made Me Do”: The Psychology behind Social Engineering & Human Intelligence Operations – Christina Lekati

Sanna/ August 26, 2024/ Conference/ 0 comments

Social Engineering and Human Intelligence (HUMINT) operations both rely heavily on effectively navigating a person’s mind in order to steer their behavior. As simple as this sounds, “quick and dirty” influence tactics will not take an operator very far. Behavior engineering is a complex, multilayered process that requires a good understanding of human psychology and self-awareness. In this intensive masterclass, participants will get access to the underlying psychology responsible for the way people think, decide, and act. They will also learn to influence and reshape all three layers. What are people’s automatic triggers? How can you engineer predictable action-reaction responses that produce a desirable outcome? How do you cultivate a target into taking specific actions or divulging information? But also, what are the ethical boundaries and moral implications of this process? The class will

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0711, 2023

DeepSec 2023 Press Release: Open Source Intelligence Training for Companies – DeepSec Conference offers OSINT Training in IT Security Skills.

Sanna/ November 7, 2023/ Conference

In information security, the focus is often placed on technical solutions and ready-made security products. Successful attacks always start with the reconnaissance of information from freely available sources. This so-called Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) is closely interwoven with social engineering methods, which are an indispensable part of successful attacks. The DeepSec conference offers a two-day intensive training course on this topic. A head start through the right information Reports on data leaks at companies rarely reflect the actual process. Although it is often simplistically mentioned that social engineering was used in a phishing attack, the methods have changed considerably in recent years. The path to a successful phishing message involves many steps and enormous preparation. Any publicly available information is collected and analysed by the attackers. Most companies and organisations have weak points in

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1809, 2023

DeepSec 2023 Talk: Skynet wants your Passwords! The Role of AI in Automating Social Engineering – Alexander Hurbean & Wolfgang Ettlinger

Sanna/ September 18, 2023/ Conference

We techies love solving problems with cool technology, to where we attempt to implement the economy in code. Although important in general, we know that, for example, blockchain, cryptography, and Secure Software Development Life Cycle (SSDLC) are irrelevant when the user enters their credentials on a phishing site. From an attacker’s point of view, though, we see that modern technologies such as artificial intelligence are immensely beneficial to attack one of the weakest links in security – humans. We will explore how modern technologies, for instance DeepFakes, Deep Neural Networks (DNNs), and Transformers, can be misused by bad actors. We will explore some interesting ideas for attacks, discuss their practical feasibility and show implementations of some of these attacks. We will also look at approaches to detect and defend against AI-powered attacks. We asked

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3008, 2023

DeepSec 2023 Press Release: DeepSec 2023 publishes Programme – This year’s conference focuses on language models and infrastructure

Sanna/ August 30, 2023/ Conference, Press

  Everyone is discussing Artificial Intelligence language models that have vast amounts of learning data. Language models are supposed to revolutionise information technology overnight, but their first applications are actually digital attacks. TThe current state of deep fake detection, social engineering attacks, and security incident response benefits will be highlighted at the DeepSec security conference this year. Of course, there are many more presentations that are indispensable for digital defence. Language models do not think, they forge Attacks through phishing emails and social engineering bypass technical measures through communication. By imitating victims’ language, attackers try to get them to support the attack with their own actions. Artificial persuasion is the speciality of AI language models, as they are designed to simulate conversation. Alexander Hurbean discusses which tools are available for these attacks and how

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2508, 2023

DeepSec 2023 Training: Security Intelligence: Practical Social Engineering & Open-source Intelligence for Security Teams – Christina Lekati

Sanna/ August 25, 2023/ Conference, Interview, Training

Social engineering attacks remain at the top of the threat landscape and data breach reports. Reports tend to oversimplify breaches as just phishing attacks, but current research shows it’s more complex. Social engineering attacks have been evolving. Successful phishing emails are usually a result of a larger attack based on research and intelligence that identifies organizational vulnerabilities. But it doesn’t stop there. Weaponized psychology is still a powerful component of social engineering attacks. Security professionals and testers need to know how social engineering works and how to stop attacks. This class aims to provide participants with the necessary knowledge on open-source intelligence and social engineering, to help security teams build better protective measures (proactive & reactive) and to inform their security strategy. It also aims to help penetration testers improve their recommendations and provide

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0311, 2016

DeepSec 2016: Social Engineering remains the most dangerous Threat to Companies – DeepSec offers a Workshop on the Defence of social Manipulation as part of IT

Sanna/ November 3, 2016/ Conference, Press, Schedule, Training

If you follow the news on information security, you see superlative after superlative. Millions of passwords were stolen. Hundreds of thousands of cameras suddenly became tools for blackmail. Countless data got copied unauthorized. Often, after a few paragraphs, your read about technical solutions that should put a stop to these burglaries. Therefore one forgets that nowadays hermetically locked doors can be easily opened just by a telephone call or an e-mail message. According to a publication of the British Federation of Small Businesses, almost 50% of attacks are social engineering attacks, which means attacks through social manipulation.Thus, investments in technical defense measures remain completely ineffective. Mere security awareness does not help anymore In the past approaches to defend against attacks on the weak spot human being have focused on awareness trainings. But in our

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0510, 2016

DeepSec 2016 Talk: Social Engineering The Most Underestimated APT – Hacking the Human Operating System – Dominique C. Brack

Sanna/ October 5, 2016/ Conference, Security

Social Engineering is an accepted Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) and is going to stay according to Dominique C. Brack of the Reputelligence, Social Engineering Engagement Framework (SEEF). Most of the high-value hacking attacks include components of social engineering. Understanding the behind the scene methods and approaches of social engineering will help you make the world a safer place. Or make your attack plans more successful! Social Engineering is a topic that does not really fit into technical hacking and is also underestimated by security professionals. There are no tools or hardware you can buy to prevent Social Engineering attacks. But Social Engineering is an APT to be taken seriously, because most attacks consist partly of it and its attack execution and prevention needs training and skills. Social Engineering has progressed and professionalized more than you think. It is disastrously effective.

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0309, 2016

DeepSec 2016 Workshop: Penetration Testing Humans – Bethany Ward & Cyni Winegard

Sanna/ September 3, 2016/ Conference, Security, Training

Do you know the film where the victim gets an unsuspecting phone call and dies three days later? No? Relax, it happens in the real world, too. The difference is that you get a quite normal phone call at the office and three days later some of your data has been copied. The technical term is leaked, also known as stolen. All your security measures will be untouched. Why break into a firewall or into servers when you get the access credentials by phone? Social engineering is an advanced and very persistent threat. You probably get phone calls and emails every day. You may often interact with people you have never seen or met before. Given the right approach they will make you and your employees believe anything. In turn this technique is very

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