CSCD 303Essential Computer SecurityWinter 2014

Lecture 3 - Social Engineering1PhishingReading: See links at end of lecture

Overview

• Social Engineering–Defined

• Humans as vulnerabilities• Phishing –What is it?–What does it accomplish–How to recognize it?–Solutions to Phishing

Social Engineering

Social Engineering Manipulating or tricking people into divulging private information as opposed to using technical hacking techniques

Or, getting them to use unauthorized devices to compromise themselves

Test Case of Human Vulnerabilities June 2011, Bloomberg published the

results of a test conducted by the U.S. Depart. of Homeland Security

To assess the government’s vulnerability to unauthorized system access,

DHS dropped disks and USB drives in parking lots of government agencies and private contractors

Test Case of Human Vulnerabilities Results

60 % of workers who found devices plugged them into their office computers

When device was imprinted with an official number of installations on office machines skyrocketed to 90 %

http://www.crn.com/blogs-op-ed/channel-voices/232200743/how-to-manage-the-weak-link-in-cybersecurity-humans.htm

The Individual User

Users…• Represent the largest install base• Completely lack standards• Cannot be controlled centrally (or

otherwise)• Are only predictable in their

unpredictability• Cannot be redesigned• Are all of us !!!

What Exactly is Phishing?

Define Phishing

Phishing Scams Defined

• Phishing is type of deception designed to steal your personal data, such as credit card numbers, passwords, account data, or other information

• Con artists might send millions of fraudulent e-mail messages that appear to come from Web sites you trust

•Like your bank or credit card company, and request that you provide personal information.

More Phishing Definitions

Spear Phishing – a phishing scam that targets a specific audience

Example with Kansas Statue Univ. but mentions Kansas State University and is sent to K-State email addresses

Scareware - Tries to trick you into responding by using shock, anxiety or threats

“reply with your password now or we’ll shut down your email account tomorrow”

Socially aware attacks Mine social relationships from public data Phishing email appears to arrive from someone known to

victim Use spoofed identity of trusted organization to gain trust Urge victims to update or validate their account Threaten to terminate the account if the victims not reply Use gift or bonus as a bait Security promises

Context-aware attacks “Your bid on eBay has won!” “The books on your Amazon wish list are on sale!”

Spear-Phishing: Improved Target Selection

General Patton is retiring next week, click here to say whether you can attend his retirement party

Phishing Increasing in SophisticationTargeting Your Organization

Spear-phishing targets specific groups or individuals

Type 1 – Uses info about your organization

Phishing Increasing in SophisticationTargeting Your Organization

Around 40% of people in experiments at CMU would fall for emails like this (control condition)

Phishing Increasing in SophisticationTargeting You Specifically

Type 2 – Uses info specifically about you

Social Phishing• Might use information from social networking

sites, corporate directories, or publicly available data

• Ex. Fake email from friends or co-workers• Ex. Fake videos of you and your friends

Phishing Increasing in SophisticationTargeting You Specifically

Here’s a video I took of yourposter presentation.

Another Example:

But wait…

WHOIS 210.104.211.21:

Location: Korea, Republic Of

Even bigger problem:

I don’t have an account with US Bank!

Images from Anti-Phishing Working Group’s Phishing Archive

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Spear PhishingExampleKSU.edu

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Spear PhishingExampleKSU.edu

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ScarewareExample

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ScarewareExample

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Another Scareware Example

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Another Scareware Example

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Spear phishing scam received by K-Staters,January 2010If you clicked on the link…

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Malicious link in scam email took you to an exact replica of K-State’s single sign-on web page, hosted on a server in the Netherlands,that steals ID and password if they enter it and click “Sign in”Clicking on “Sign in” then took user to K-State’s home pageNote the URL – flushandfloose.nl, which is obviously not k-state.edu

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Real SSOweb page

Fake SSOweb page

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Real SSOweb page –note “https”

Fake SSOweb page –site not secure (http,not https) andhosted in theNetherlands(.nl)

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Real SSOweb page –Use the eIDverificationbadge tovalidate

Fake SSOweb page

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Result of clicking on eID verification badge on the fake SSO web site, or any site that is not authorized to use the eID and password

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Result of clicking on eID verification badge on a legitimate K-State web site that is authorized to use the eID and password for authentication

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Real K-State Federal Credit Unionweb site

Fake K-State Federal Credit Union web site used in spear phishing scam

Phreaking + Fishing = Phishing- Phreaking = making phone calls for free back in 70’s- Fishing = Use bait to lure the target

Phishing in 1995Target: AOL usersPurpose: getting account passwords for free timeThreat level: lowTechniques: Similar names ( www.ao1.com for www.aol.com ), social engineering

Phishing in 2001Target: Ebayers and major banksPurpose: getting credit card numbers, accountsThreat level: mediumTechniques: Same in 1995, keylogger

Phishing in 2007Target: Paypal, banks, ebayPurpose: bank accountsThreat level: highTechniques: browser vulnerabilities, link obfuscation

History of Phishing

• 2,000,000 emails are sent• 5% get to the end user – 100,000 (APWG)• 5% click on the phishing link – 5,000 (APWG)• 2% enter data into the phishing site –100 (Gartner)• $1,200 from each person who enters data (FTC)• Potential reward: $120,000

A bad day phishin’, beats a good day workin’

In 2005 David Levi made over $360,000 from 160 people using an eBay Phishing scam

Anti-phishing Working Group

http://www.antiphishing.org/

How Bad Is Phishing?Consumer Perspective Estimated ~0.5% of Internet users per year fall for phishing attacks Conservative $1B+ direct losses a year to consumers Bank accounts, credit card fraud Doesn’t include time wasted on recovery of funds, restoring computers, emotional uncertainty Growth rate of phishing 30k+ reported unique emails / month 45k+ reported unique sites / month Social networking sites now major targets

How Bad Is Phishing?Perspective of Corporations

Direct damage Loss of sensitive customer data

How Bad Is Phishing?Perspective of Corporations

Direct damage Loss of sensitive customer data Loss of intellectual property

Why Do People Fall for Phishing? Phishing has been around for years How come people still fall for it?

Research on PhishingCarnegie Mellon University Interviewed 40 Internet users

including 35 non-experts Conducted Mental models interviews

Mental models included email role play and open ended questions

Reference: J Downs, M. Holbrook, and L. CranorDecision Strategies and Susceptibility to Phishing.In Proc. of the 2006 Symposium On Usable Privacy and

Security

Research on PhishingCarnegie Mellon University

Only 50% knew the meaning of the term Phishing

85% were aware of the lock icon Only 40% knew it was supposed to be there Only 35% had noticed the https and knew

what it means Only 55% noticed an unexpected or strange

URL Only 55% reported being cautious when asked

for sensitive financial info Few reported being suspicious of being asked for

passwords … was in 2006 Do you think there would be the same stats

today?

Research on PhishingCarnegie Mellon University Naïve Evaluation Strategies

Most strategies didn't help people in identifying phishing

“ This email appears to be for me”“ It's normal to hear from companies you

do business with”“ Reputable companies will send emails”

Knowledge of some scams didn't help identify other scams

Determining Email Fraud and Protection Measures

Today's SolutionsNot so Successful Anti-phishing filters that rely on

blacklists and whitelistsUsually not up to date and there are

many false positives Training

Websites and posters help some Spam Filters

Don't tend to catch phishing, emails look legitimate

More Successful Solutions

Two Research Based Filters, CMU Pilfer Cantina

Pilfer – Looks at other features than email textNumber of domains linked to emailLinks in email to other than the main domain

Cantina – Use Content based approachCreates a fingerprint of a web pageSends fingerprint to search engineSees if web page is in search results

• If yes, then legitimate

Detecting Phishing Web SitesIndustry uses blacklists to label phishing sites But blacklists slow to new attacksIdea: Use search engines Scammers often directly copy web pages But fake pages should have low PageRank on search engines Generate text-based “fingerprint” of web page keywords and send to a search engine

Y. Zhang, S. Egelman, L. Cranor, and J. Hong Phinding Phish: Evaluating Anti-Phishing Tools. In NDSS 2007.

Y. Zhang, J. Hong, and L. Cranor. CANTINA: A content-based approach to detecting phishing web sites. In WWW 2007.

G. Xiang and J. Hong. A Hybrid Phish Detection Approach by Identity Discovery and Keywords Retrieval. In WWW 2009.

Human Training

Following slides provide common advice for identifying phishing or fraudulent emails ...

Look at few phrases to look for if you think an e-mail message is phishing scam

• "Verify your account" Businesses should not ask you to send passwords, login names, Social Security numbers, or other personal information through e-mail

– If you receive an e-mail from anyone asking you to update your credit card information, do not respond:

– This is a phishing scam

• "If you don't respond within 48 hours, your account will be closed."These messages convey a sense of urgency so that you'll respond immediately without thinking

Human TrainingHow To Tell If An E-mailMessage is Fraudulent

Human TrainingHow To Tell If An E-mailMessage is Fraudulent

"Dear Valued Customer." Phishing e-mail messages are usually sent out in bulk and often do not contain your first or last name

"Click the link below to gain access to your account."• HTML-formatted messages can contain links or forms that you can fill out just as you'd fill out a form on a Web site• The links that you are urged to click may contain all or part of a real company's name and are usually "masked," meaning that the link you see does not take you to that address but somewhere different, usually a phony Web site.• Resting mouse pointer on link reveals the real Web address• String of cryptic numbers looks nothing like the company's Web address, which is a suspicious sign.

Con artists also use Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) that resemble the name of a well-known company but are slightly altered by adding, omitting, or transposing letters.

For example, the URL "www.microsoft.com" could appear instead as:

www.micosoft.com www.mircosoft.com www.verify-microsoft.com

Human TrainingHow To Tell If An E-mailMessage is Fraudulent

• Never respond to an email asking for personal information • Always check the site to see if it is secure. Call the phone number if necessary• Never click on the link on the email. Retype the address in a new window• Keep your browser updated• Keep antivirus definitions updated• Use a firewall

P.S: Always shred your home documents before discarding them.

Human TrainingHow To Tell If An E-mailMessage is Fraudulent

Human TrainingAnti-Phishing Games Ok, traditional training doesn't work but ..

People like to play gamesTeach using a game

Results have shown thatMore people willing to play game than read People are better at identifying phishing after

playing the game Best known is Anti-phishing Phil from CMU

http://cups.cs.cmu.edu/antiphishing_phil/

Anti-Phishing Phil

A micro-game to teach people not to fall for phish

PhishGuru about email, this game about web browser

Also based on learning science principles You will get to Try the game!

S. Sheng et al. Anti-Phishing Phil: The Design and Evaluation of a Game That Teaches People Not to Fall for Phish. In SOUPS 2007, Pittsburgh, PA, 2007.

Anti-Phishing Phil

Evaluation of PhishGuru Is embedded training effective? Study 1: Lab study, 30 participants Study 2: Lab study, 42 participants Study 3: Field trial at company, ~300 participants Study 4: Field trial at CMU, ~500 participants Studies showed significant decrease in falling for phish and ability to retain what they learned

P. Kumaraguru et al. Protecting People from Phishing: The Design and Evaluation of an Embedded Training Email System. CHI 2007.

P. Kumaraguru et al. Getting Users to Pay Attention to Anti-Phishing Education: Evaluation of Retention and Transfer. eCrime 2007.

Anti-Phishing Phil: Study

Novices showed most improvement in false negatives (calling phish legitimate)

Anti-Phishing Phil: Study 2

Improvement all around for false positives

Summary Wikipedia has a nice page on phishing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing Phishing is already a plague on the Internet

Seriously affects consumers, businesses, governments Criminals getting more sophisticated

End-users can be trained, but only if done right PhishGuru embedded training uses simulated phishing Anti-Phishing Phil and Anti-Phishing Phyllis micro-games

Phishing at HoaxSlayerhttp://www.hoax-slayer.com/phisher-scams.html

Nice set of fishing examples with explanationshttp://www.hoax-slayer.com/phishing-scam-articles.shtml

Can try PhishGuru, Phil, and Phyllis at: http:// www.wombatsecurity.com

The End

Next Time: Attackers– Lab this week is Phishing !!!– Book – No real reference in our book– See references on previous slide