Please don’t hate me, but I need to social engineer you now.

Presented at Diana Initiative 2019, Aug. 10, 2019, 4 p.m. (30 minutes)

The “ether sheet”, also known as the “blood/brain barrier” is a sheet that covers the face of a patient in surgery. While it is practical for sterilization, it also helps facilitate a surgeon to make the cut. While all doctors make an oath to “do no harm,” for some, they need to do some harm before thorough healing can happen. Similarly, for social engineers we need to do some harm in order for security awareness to advance. However, there is no defined blood/brain barrier for social engineering. Without one, social engineers are vulnerable to feelings of guilt and remorse even though they are working for the greater good. Those feelings can prevent a good social engineer from being a great social engineer. This research explores how to build one’s own social engineering blood/brain barrier so that social engineers can protect themselves in their efforts to better protect others.


Presenters:

  • Whitney Maxwell - Security Consultant at Rapid7
    Whitney Maxwell has over 5 years of experience in security. She is currently working for Rapid7 as a security consultant with expertise in social engineering and red teaming. She received the Social Engineering CTF Black Badge from DEF CON in 2018 and she received her Masters of Technology degree with an emphasis in cyber security from Brigham Young University in December of 2017. Her previous experience includes working on the Office 365 red team at Microsoft where she pen tested network infrastructures, coded internal toolsets, and adjudicated cases for the O365 bug bounty. Along with her professional experience she was one of the founding members of the Cyber Security Research Lab red team at Brigham Young University.

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