The Art of Deception_ Controlling the Human Element of Security - Kevin D. Mitnick [168]
18-6 Visitors in mail room
Policy: No visitors should be permitted in the mail room without the supervision of a company worker.
Explanation/Notes: The intention of this policy is to prevent an outsider from exchanging, sending, or stealing intracompany mail.
18-7 Vehicle license plate numbers
Policy: If the company has a guarded parking area, security staff shall log vehicle license plate numbers for any vehicle entering the area.
18-8 Trash Dumpsters
Policy: trash Dumpsters must remain on company premises at all times and should be inaccessible to the public.
Explanation/Notes: Computer attackers and industrial spies can obtain valuable information from company trash bins. The courts have held that trash is considered legally abandoned property, so the act of Dumpster diving is perfectly legal, as long as the trash receptacles are on public property. For this reason, it is important that trash receptacles be situated on company property, where the company has a legal right to protect the containers and their contents.
POLICIES FOR RECEPTIONISTS
Receptionists are often on the front lines when it comes to dealing with social engineers, yet they are rarely given enough security training to recognize and stop an invader. Institute these policies to help your receptionist better protect your company and its data.
19-1 Internal directory
Policy: Disclosure of information in the internal company directory should be limited to persons employed by the company.
Explanation/Notes: All employee titles, names, telephone numbers, and addresses contained within the company directory should be considered Internal information, and should only be disclosed in accordance with the policy related to data classification and Internal information.
Additionally, any calling party must have the name or extension of the party they are trying to contact. Although the receptionist can put a call through to an individual when a caller does not know the extension, telling the caller the extension number should be prohibited. (For those curious folks who follow by example, you can experience this procedure by calling the National Security Agency and asking the operator to provide an extension.)
19-2 Telephone numbers for specific departments/groups
Policy: Employees shall not provide direct telephone numbers for the company help desk, telecommunications department, computer operations, or system administrator personnel without verifying that the requester has a legitimate need to contact these groups. The receptionist, when transferring a call to these groups, must announce the caller’s name.
Explanation/Notes: Although some organizations may find this policy overly restrictive, this rule makes it more difficult for a social engineer to masquerade as an employee by deceiving other employees into transferring the call from their extension (which in some phone systems causes the call to appear to originate from within the company), or demonstrating knowledge of these extensions to the victim in order to create a sense of authenticity.
19-3 Relaying information
Policy: Telephone operators and receptionists should not take messages or relay information on behalf of any party not personally known to be an active employee.
Explanation/Notes: Social engineers are adept at deceiving employees into inadvertently vouching for their identity. One social engineering trick is to obtain the telephone number of the receptionist and, on a pretext, ask the receptionist to take any messages that may come for him. Then, during a call to the victim, the attacker pretends to be an employee, asks for some sensitive information or to perform a task, and gives the main switchboard number as a callback number. The attacker later calls back to the receptionist and is given any message left for him by the unsuspecting victim.
19-4 Items left for pickup
Policy: Before releasing