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A man was gifted his dream car by Kevin Mitnick, who he helped put in prison

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Re: A man was gifted his dream car by Kevin Mitnick, who he helped put in prison

#91

Post by kakacik »

vasco wrote: post #88
dmos62 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because susceptibility to attacks is a question of training. What would the goal of placing individual blame be? Shame? Drive them to seek training outside work? Further, if you periodically single out people, the organization will hate you.

Shame works for me. If I was ever the one that got sniped and my colleagues saw it I'd forever be paranoid about it. Like when my dad sat me down and told me that I couldn't keep losing hats all the time when I was a kid and that I wasn't a baby anymore and it was expensive, and that shame made me look behind me when I leave somewhere until today and stop losing stuff. Specially for security, yes, shame the personal…

> Shame works for me

> I'd forever be paranoid about it

Some folks like to work that way, but I don't think most do. This obsession for outward correct behavior, even if it works at the end (at least externally), doesn't sound like a recipe for happy inner life but maybe I am reading too much into that.

Re: A man was gifted his dream car by Kevin Mitnick, who he helped put in prison

#92

Post by imgabe »

deepsun wrote: post #66
fma wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why hack a password when you can get the employee to just tell you.

Because the employee now knows who might have done it.

The employee doesn’t know who you are. They met “Bob the support rep from Vendor xyz” who just needed access to fix an issue.

Re: A man was gifted his dream car by Kevin Mitnick, who he helped put in prison

#93

Post by stymaar »

hypfer wrote: post #90
vasco wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shame works for me. If I was ever the one that got sniped and my colleagues saw it I'd forever be paranoid about it. Like when my dad sat me down and told me that I couldn't keep losing hats all the time when I was a kid and that I wasn't a baby anymore and it was expensive, and that shame made me look behind me when I leave somewhere until today and stop losing stuff. Specially for security, yes, shame the personal…

I think people saw that old culture and thought "man, that's horrible. We must never do that". And the assessment was right, but also wrong. Previously, shame (and other pressure) was just applied without first empathically inspecting why the node was acting in the way it did, thinking that just enough force will surely solve the problem. It kinda did, but with lots of collateral. Essentially, the security consultant…

> I think people saw that old culture and thought "man, that's horrible. We must never do that". And the assessment was right, but also wrong. Previously, shame (and other pressure) was just applied without first empathically inspecting why the node was acting in the way it did, thinking that just enough force will surely solve the problem. It kinda did, but with lots of collateral. […] But now we have this overcorrection, because people are still lazy and do not want to do their job correctly, which leads to the systems failing in a different way.

Very well said, and I think your exact description applies to management in general: management is hard, and require hard work to be done correctly, tailoring you response to every person, because two people being bad are their job aren't always bad for the same reason.

But most managers are not suited to the job, because it's mostly a status symbol and not something you give to the most qualified person, and most are too lazy to even try learning about it, so they don't make the effort of adapting to every individual, and in the end they end up either tyrannical or complacent.

Re: A man was gifted his dream car by Kevin Mitnick, who he helped put in prison

#94

Post by NonHyloMorph »

vasco wrote: post #88
dmos62 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because susceptibility to attacks is a question of training. What would the goal of placing individual blame be? Shame? Drive them to seek training outside work? Further, if you periodically single out people, the organization will hate you.

Shame works for me. If I was ever the one that got sniped and my colleagues saw it I'd forever be paranoid about it. Like when my dad sat me down and told me that I couldn't keep losing hats all the time when I was a kid and that I wasn't a baby anymore and it was expensive, and that shame made me look behind me when I leave somewhere until today and stop losing stuff. Specially for security, yes, shame the personal…

"shame them in a positive way" Oh my. That's some HR type viciousness right here. (⌒▽⌒)

Re: A man was gifted his dream car by Kevin Mitnick, who he helped put in prison

#95

Post by gosub100 »

tmach32 wrote: post #71
nunley wrote: post #32

I'm going to defend Kevin here because I see a lot of comments from people I am sure have no valid reason to be hating on him. Kevin was particularly annoying because he never failed to penetrate a target. The reason that's annoying is it just takes one slip, one weak point, one inattentive admin and it's over. People will stay mad about that. I get it. But those who say he had no talent are just ignorant. His goal w…

Yeah, I am shocked a little, because he wasn't a monster or something. Critique is valid, but speaking with obvious resentment and disrespect about someone who died is pretty gross. Again, unless they're, like, a _monster_.

If you're a high profile public figure, you are subject to scrutiny. Even after you pass away.

Re: A man was gifted his dream car by Kevin Mitnick, who he helped put in prison

#96

Post by quantummagic »

garbagewoman wrote: post #84
wjnc wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, this is a part about itsec I don’t understand in my firm. They run social engineering tests, but never notify management when individuals fail, only in general terms. While being psyopped needs to be activelly discussed among coworkers imho.

Assigning individual blame is missing the point of improving the security culture in general

Do you hold that same opinion for the training and testing of pilots and surgeons? Do you want to step on a plane with a pilot who is only there because we are too nice to assign individual blame for his inability to do the job properly? Do you want to be going into open heart surgery in a system that dismisses the idea of individual blame when analyzing the outcomes associated with each surgeon? Having no idea if the man cutting into you, has previously had great outcomes or poor outcomes?

Re: A man was gifted his dream car by Kevin Mitnick, who he helped put in prison

#97

Post by hypfer »

stymaar wrote: post #93
hypfer wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people saw that old culture and thought "man, that's horrible. We must never do that". And the assessment was right, but also wrong. Previously, shame (and other pressure) was just applied without first empathically inspecting why the node was acting in the way it did, thinking that just enough force will surely solve the problem. It kinda did, but with lots of collateral. Essentially, the security consultant…

> I think people saw that old culture and thought "man, that's horrible. We must never do that". And the assessment was right, but also wrong. Previously, shame (and other pressure) was just applied without first empathically inspecting why the node was acting in the way it did, thinking that just enough force will surely solve the problem. It kinda did, but with lots of collateral. […] But now we have this overcorre…

I mean to be fair, with the business models, incentives, compensation, etc. being how they have been, why would you care?

Why would you do the hard work when you can also just not do that?

I mean I agree with "people are not suited for the job", however, I also feel like often, "the job is not suited for people".

It's rot all the way down, essentially.

Re: A man was gifted his dream car by Kevin Mitnick, who he helped put in prison

#98

Post by rcbdev »

user_of_the_wek wrote: post #86
firefax wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>He got all of the "Free Kevin" attention because of how long he was left in jail before trial and then being stuck in solitary confinement after sentencing for months. That was uncalled for on the part of DOJ. >He was also autistic, a lot of the behavior can be explained through that lens. I'm autistic. Maybe I should go commit a bunch of felonies to increase my chances of a good job and stature in the hacker commun…

Vienna waits for you

Is Vienna the place to be for security researchers in their 30s starting to doubt their life choices?

Re: A man was gifted his dream car by Kevin Mitnick, who he helped put in prison

#99

Post by ErroneousBosh »

firebot wrote: post #36
mcfunley wrote: post #6

I worked at a company that had hired Mitnick as a security consultant. His report for a client that turned out to have been rife with SQL injection at the time was largely movie plot physical security stuff. Not wrong exactly, but not the center mass of the threat model they needed either. He seemed to lack systems thinking, producing a report that focused on calling out specific employees as dumb or incompetent. Cou…

He mostly used social engineering. Not technical exploits. So that's how he succeeded. Call it crazy, but it worked.

And now all that shitty KnowBe4 nonsense we have to sit through every couple of months is all "What do you do if your manager phones you up and says they're on a business trip and need you to use the company credit card to buy Amazon gift cards", over and over and over.

Bold of them to assume I'll answer the phone if I see my manager's number come up.

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