Arhont can help you to prevent increasingly effective attacks directed against employees by verifying where actual social engineering risks lie, designing and prioritising their mitigation, and assisting with implementation of any suggested countermeasures whether technical, staff training-based, or both. 

Sometimes, social engineers take offline approaches including "old school" physical trespassing via  tailgating, presenting fake identities, or arranging a legitimate visit and abusing it. Often, the social engineer is a malicious insider who wants to gain unauthorised access to a high security area. Such physical attacks can be technically augmented by distribution of “lost” infected media or installation of rogue devices.

Then, we establish the most critical employee groups, their levels of access to sensitive information and systems, personal circles of trust, and communication channels through which social engineering attempts are most likely to succeed. Then we design a bespoke social engineering campaign, deploy realistic and enticing phishing sites, and ensure that target employee groups visit them and fall for the presented cons. Once lured employees visit the site, they are persuaded to submit valid authentication credentials or other sensitive information.

Besides, we execute client-side attacks against phishing sites visitors, or can spread fake malware to verify how many users fall for it. Once access to any accounts, systems or applications is gained, we proceed with privilege escalation tests to evaluate real impact of the problem and see where the exploited human weaknesses can take attackers who also possess technical expertise. Thus, our consultants employ the "combined arms" approach based upon synergistic exploitation of human and technical flaws.

Once a social engineering campaign is executed, we analyse its results and generate statistics upon which the assessment report is based. We pinpoint which specific departments, locations, project teams, employee groups, tiers and types are most susceptible to social engineering attacks and to which extent, identify which types of attacks they are vulnerable to, and which process and policy shortfalls, as well as human follies, have lead to these vulnerabilities. We also assess reaction of the company management, IT and security teams to simulated social engineering attack including timeliness, appropriateness and effectiveness of this reaction.

During live tests we attempt to breach building perimeter security controls and internal physical access controls that are designed to prohibit access by unauthorised individuals. These are real intrusion attempts by our team who will endeavour to achieve predetermined objectives and acquire other targets and information as opportunities arise, within the pre-set rules of engagement.

We perform reconnaissance, use social engineering, intercept your private hand-held radio transmissions (used by security guards), and use various other means to aid our simulated attack. If successful, we will then attempt to exercise monitoring and surveillance controls to see at what point they become effective.

Typical objectives include accessing the internal network, gaining entry to data suites, obtaining sensitive hard copy information, proving the theoretical possibility of planting surveillance devices in key locations, intercepting telecommunications, or installing wireless devices for the provision of a distant out-of-band access to the local network.

During a physical security review we evaluate the agreed safeguards to determine their effectiveness and to identify gaps and weaknesses. This would typically include the access control system for doors, CCTV monitoring and communications. It would also cover procedures for controlling visitor access, deliveries and contract services, such as cleaning. It can extend to searching for covert cameras and unauthorised devices in meeting rooms and offices, and may involve investigations into other areas such as staff vetting and termination procedures.