4 ms·

How is someone persuading your provider to transfer your number to another provider, a hack?

dehrmann 7y ago
Social engineering. > Hi, AT&T, I was at the bar last night and I lost my phone. I still have my old phone, though. Can you help me transfer it? Mother's maiden name? Why yes, it is on whitepages.com!
- Stierlitz 7y ago
  @guessmyname: ‘It sounds like you are not aware of the existence of the term “Social Engineering”.’ Sorry for the delay in answering, “Social Engineering” is not hacking. Manipulating the SS7 protocols for nefarious ends, could be considered hacking. https://blog.securegroup.com/phone-hacking-through-ss7-is-frighteningly-easy-and-effective https://blog.securegroup.com/phone-hacking-through-ss7-is-fr...
_bxg1 7y ago
Anything where you're accessing or affecting an informational system in a malicious way could be called a hack. Social engineering is a mainstay at Def Con.
- ahaseeb 7y ago
  There is so much information available online on you which is sufficient for any one to hack you
garmaine 7y ago
You call the provider's help line and tell the minimum wage call center worker on the other end that your phone has been stolen and you want to assign it to a new SIM code.
- ahaseeb 7y ago
  Not in our case where we go through 11 step process. In addition to this our staff is highly trained and everytime a request is made, we assume it's an attack
  - garmaine 7y ago
    Which company do you work for? (I’m on T-Mobile and this has happened to me 3 times)
guessmyname 7y ago
> How is someone persuading your provider to transfer your number to another provider, a hack? It sounds like you are not aware of the existence of the term “Social Engineering”. I invite you to read this Wiki page [1] which explains what the hack is about. Social Engineering is, in fact, one of the most common techniques used by hack people, for example, by tricking someone into clicking a malicious link in a phishing email. There is also “Smishing” which is the same —tricking someone into reading and clicking a malicious text or link— but via SMS. In this specific case the hackers are using a technique commonly known as “Vishing” or “Voice Phishing” [2] which is a criminal practice of using social engineering over a telephone system to gain access to private personal and financial information from the public for the purpose of financial reward (verbatim from WikiPedia). Have you heard stories of hacks where an employee plugged an infected USB, CD-ROM or floppy-disk into a computer connected to a secure facility? Well, this is another social engineering technique commonly known as “Baiting” used by hackers to attack systems that otherwise would be impossible to access from outside [3]. Stuxnet [4] is one of the most famous examples of a social engineering attack, among several other techniques. As you can see, social engineering is the very beginning of many hacks. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_engineering_%28security%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_engineering_%28security... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_phishing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_phishing [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_gap_%28networking%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_gap_%28networking%29 [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet

Social engineering. > Hi, AT&T, I was at the bar last night and I lost my phone. I still have my old phone, though. Can you help me transfer it? Mother's maiden name? Why yes, it is on whitepages.com!

Stierlitz 7y ago
@guessmyname: ‘It sounds like you are not aware of the existence of the term “Social Engineering”.’ Sorry for the delay in answering, “Social Engineering” is not hacking. Manipulating the SS7 protocols for nefarious ends, could be considered hacking. https://blog.securegroup.com/phone-hacking-through-ss7-is-frighteningly-easy-and-effective https://blog.securegroup.com/phone-hacking-through-ss7-is-fr...

_bxg1 7y ago

Anything where you're accessing or affecting an informational system in a malicious way could be called a hack. Social engineering is a mainstay at Def Con.

ahaseeb 7y ago
There is so much information available online on you which is sufficient for any one to hack you

garmaine 7y ago

You call the provider's help line and tell the minimum wage call center worker on the other end that your phone has been stolen and you want to assign it to a new SIM code.

ahaseeb 7y ago
Not in our case where we go through 11 step process. In addition to this our staff is highly trained and everytime a request is made, we assume it's an attack
- garmaine 7y ago
  Which company do you work for? (I’m on T-Mobile and this has happened to me 3 times)

guessmyname 7y ago

> How is someone persuading your provider to transfer your number to another provider, a hack? It sounds like you are not aware of the existence of the term “Social Engineering”. I invite you to read this Wiki page [1] which explains what the hack is about. Social Engineering is, in fact, one of the most common techniques used by hack people, for example, by tricking someone into clicking a malicious link in a phishing email. There is also “Smishing” which is the same —tricking someone into reading and clicking a malicious text or link— but via SMS. In this specific case the hackers are using a technique commonly known as “Vishing” or “Voice Phishing” [2] which is a criminal practice of using social engineering over a telephone system to gain access to private personal and financial information from the public for the purpose of financial reward (verbatim from WikiPedia). Have you heard stories of hacks where an employee plugged an infected USB, CD-ROM or floppy-disk into a computer connected to a secure facility? Well, this is another social engineering technique commonly known as “Baiting” used by hackers to attack systems that otherwise would be impossible to access from outside [3]. Stuxnet [4] is one of the most famous examples of a social engineering attack, among several other techniques. As you can see, social engineering is the very beginning of many hacks. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_engineering_%28security%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_engineering_%28security... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_phishing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_phishing [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_gap_%28networking%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_gap_%28networking%29 [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet