According to an employee with knowledge of the system, the password to the Louvre's video surveillance system was simply "Louvre" at the time of the robbery last month.
Proving once again that humans are the weakest link in your security chain. No firewall or other security protocol matters when people are too lazy to use more secure passwords (or just click on random links in their email).
I once read an interview with a white hat hacker. He said that people expect him to try to remotely connect to their network and try to brute force his way in. The first thing he actually does is put on a suit, visit the company’s headquarters, walk in the front door, start a conversation with the receptionist, and see how far he can get.
In marching band, I learned you can get pretty much everywhere with a white polo, black slacks, and (optionally) an instrument. The same usually holds true for a hi-vis vest and jeans.
I’ve done quite a bit of freelance work and visited various office spaces with multiple companies in a single building. It was pretty common just to call to the building reception and tell them that I’m working for this-and-that-company upcoming weekend for their network stuff and I’d need access to network cabinets and whatnot and they’d have keys ready for me with very little (if any) verification if I’m actually doing what I’m supposed to or if I am who I claim to be. Some of the locations just handed me keys with access to practically everything, including shared server rooms hosting their CCTV setup, key managing servers and all.
So, just get a name tag with a local operator logo and clothes to match and ask nicely. You’ll get access to a lot more than you think.
I’ve done exactly that, worked as a Red Team Lead, and the success rate is pretty disturbing. That, and vishing - calling people from the company you find on Linkedin from a spoofed number of their IT that they fucked something up and need to download and run this .exe to fix it before The Audit that’s currently happening notices it.
Even if we do internal infrastructure tests where they let you in, switch AVs to “detect mode” instead of “block mode” and the goal is to find as many unpatched systems/vulnerabilities as you can (instead of, well, testing the AV solution), what we usually do is run a password spray for all domain accounts with a combinations (you can try like 3 to not lock the accounts) of “<month><year><companyname>” we every single time got at least few accounts.
Fortunately this kind of tests are getting more popular, and passwords such as this should’ve definitely been caught in some kind of security test. But it is also pretty depressing, when you repeat the same test next year, and 80% of the passwords are still the same, and vulnerabilities are still not patched.
Proving once again that humans are the weakest link in your security chain. No firewall or other security protocol matters when people are too lazy to use more secure passwords (or just click on random links in their email).
I once read an interview with a white hat hacker. He said that people expect him to try to remotely connect to their network and try to brute force his way in. The first thing he actually does is put on a suit, visit the company’s headquarters, walk in the front door, start a conversation with the receptionist, and see how far he can get.
This reminds me of an excellent episode of Dark Net Diaries, “Jeremy from Marketing”. https://pca.st/episode/52252c9e-e4a8-42f6-85f5-f162ec3f6b40
In marching band, I learned you can get pretty much everywhere with a white polo, black slacks, and (optionally) an instrument. The same usually holds true for a hi-vis vest and jeans.
I’ve done quite a bit of freelance work and visited various office spaces with multiple companies in a single building. It was pretty common just to call to the building reception and tell them that I’m working for this-and-that-company upcoming weekend for their network stuff and I’d need access to network cabinets and whatnot and they’d have keys ready for me with very little (if any) verification if I’m actually doing what I’m supposed to or if I am who I claim to be. Some of the locations just handed me keys with access to practically everything, including shared server rooms hosting their CCTV setup, key managing servers and all.
So, just get a name tag with a local operator logo and clothes to match and ask nicely. You’ll get access to a lot more than you think.
I’ve done exactly that, worked as a Red Team Lead, and the success rate is pretty disturbing. That, and vishing - calling people from the company you find on Linkedin from a spoofed number of their IT that they fucked something up and need to download and run this .exe to fix it before The Audit that’s currently happening notices it.
Even if we do internal infrastructure tests where they let you in, switch AVs to “detect mode” instead of “block mode” and the goal is to find as many unpatched systems/vulnerabilities as you can (instead of, well, testing the AV solution), what we usually do is run a password spray for all domain accounts with a combinations (you can try like 3 to not lock the accounts) of “<month><year><companyname>” we every single time got at least few accounts.
Fortunately this kind of tests are getting more popular, and passwords such as this should’ve definitely been caught in some kind of security test. But it is also pretty depressing, when you repeat the same test next year, and 80% of the passwords are still the same, and vulnerabilities are still not patched.
Not the onion?