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I was seven words away from being spear-phished

robertheaton.com

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Re: I was seven words away from being spear-phished

#21
post #17

Is it still spear-phishing when it's not a phishing attack but an 0day? Is there a better term?

AFAIK spear phishing refers to the fact that the attack is tailored/targeted, rather than mass mailings.

The "spear" means it's targeted, but it's still "phishing" - meaning the attack vector is a cloned version of a legit page

I guess this should be called spear-hacking?

Re: I was seven words away from being spear-phished

#22
post #14
post #6

It's always nice to get a good healthy dose of paranoia in the morning. This makes me think back to how my sec professor had a separate system that he'd use to access his online banking.

To be honest, that's probably overboard. You're pretty much never liable for fraudulent fiat transactions. Crypto on the other hand...

Part of the fallout from fraud isn't being afraid of losing money. Banks and credit unions are generally on your side when it comes to disputing fraudulent charges. The hassle is getting it all sorted out - verifying identity with sometimes completely inept telephone reps, replacing cards, entering new payment information for recurring charges, etc.

Re: I was seven words away from being spear-phished

#24

Is it still spear-phishing when it's not a phishing attack but an 0day? Is there a better term?

Some kind of targeted honeypot perhaps? But that is inverted from its typical use.

Edit: Maybe a trojan honeypot but I'm literally just stringing words together here.

Re: I was seven words away from being spear-phished

#25

Cool post. One small nitpick: > Neil describes his pre-university education as “High School”. We don’t have “High School” in the UK - we call it “Secondary School” Not true at all I'm afraid. Where I'm from (Norwich) we had First / Middle / High School / (Sixth Form or college) splits, alongside other schools that did the Primary / Secondary / 6th split.

I've also seen High School used in Scotland

Re: I was seven words away from being spear-phished

#26
It's impossible to overestimate the power of expectations to create trust (even in the face of contrary indications).

This just almost happened to me this week: A couple of days ago I wrote an email to a friend I hadn't been in touch with for several years. A day later I got a message from him on Facebook with what looked like a YouTube link and the cryptic message, "It's you?"

I didn't want to see myself on a random youtube video I had never heard of, so I wrote back that I didn't want to click.

Then the next day my friend announced that his account had been hacked and that those messages were spam/malware, with a bad impersonation of a YouTube link. But I was so sure it was a legit message from my friend that I didn't even notice that the link didn't actually go to YouTube. Fortunately I never clicked it, but just like the OP, it was blind luck.

[edit: fixed wording]

Re: I was seven words away from being spear-phished

#27
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"toaster" is pretty common argot for "low-power computer"

that seems kind of oxy-moronic? aren't toasters horribly energy hungry?

I would have defined toaster as "slow, horribly outdated computer". That also fits your toaster comparison since old computers are very energy hungry compared to similarly speced modern computers.

Re: I was seven words away from being spear-phished

#28

Cool post. One small nitpick: > Neil describes his pre-university education as “High School”. We don’t have “High School” in the UK - we call it “Secondary School” Not true at all I'm afraid. Where I'm from (Norwich) we had First / Middle / High School / (Sixth Form or college) splits, alongside other schools that did the Primary / Secondary / 6th split.

I've also seen High School used in Scotland

Cane here to say the same thing, e.g. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverkeithing_High_School

Although, there's a subtle difference vs US usage: in Scotland High School is only used in the context of the name of a specific school, not as a term for the generic concept. E.g. "What secondary school did you attend?"; "I went to The High School" (meaning the Royal High School in Edinburgh). You'd never say "What high school did you attend?".

Re: I was seven words away from being spear-phished

#29
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"toaster" is pretty common argot for "low-power computer"

that seems kind of oxy-moronic? aren't toasters horribly energy hungry?

The comparison is in the computing power needed to control a toaster, not to toast the toast.

Re: I was seven words away from being spear-phished

#30

Cool post. One small nitpick: > Neil describes his pre-university education as “High School”. We don’t have “High School” in the UK - we call it “Secondary School” Not true at all I'm afraid. Where I'm from (Norwich) we had First / Middle / High School / (Sixth Form or college) splits, alongside other schools that did the Primary / Secondary / 6th split.

In my bit of Lancashire our secondary schools are usually officially called xxx high school and everyone says high school rather than secondary.
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