21 Feb Sprint’s Backbone Network
6300Case Study: Breaking into Sprint’s Backbone Network
Many of the technical controls put into place can be circumvented with a simple phone call. Recently, famed hacker Kevin Mitnick demonstrated this by breaking into Sprint’s backbone network. Rather than mounting a buffer overrun or DoS attack, Mitnick simply placed a call posing as a Nortel service engineer and persuaded the staff at Sprint to provide login names and passwords to the company’s switches under the guise that he needed them to perform remote maintenance on the system. Once the password information had been obtained, Mitnick was able to dial in and manipulate Sprint’s networks at will. Many people believe this was an isolated incident, and they would not fall for a similar act of social engineering, but Mitnick gained notoriety during the 1980s and 1990s by applying similar techniques to computer networks around the world. Mitnick’s more notorious crimes included accessing computer systems at the Pentagon and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), and stealing software and source-code from major computer manufacturers. Kevin Mitnick was arrested six times, and has been working as a consultant specializing in social engineering techniques, having “gone straight” after serving a five-year sentence for his most recent crime. He even has authored several books regarding social engineering including The Art of Intrusion and The Art of Deception.
1. What procedures could help prevent a similar breach of security at your organization?
2. Phishing is usually associated with identity theft, but could this tactic also be used to gain information needed to circumvent security controls?
3. Many social engineering breaches involve using what is believed to be insider information to gain the trust of individuals in an effort to obtain confidential information. Test your ability to obtain what some might consider “insider information” using a search engine to find contact or other useful information referencing your organization.
Source: Information Age (London, UK), September 10, 2002. (Dhillon, 2017-11-17, p. 41)
Dhillon, G. (2017-11-17). Information Security: Text and Cases, 2nd Edition [VitalSource Bookshelf version]. Retrieved from vbk://9781943153244
Our website has a team of professional writers who can help you write any of your homework. They will write your papers from scratch. We also have a team of editors just to make sure all papers are of HIGH QUALITY & PLAGIARISM FREE. To make an Order you only need to click Ask A Question and we will direct you to our Order Page at WriteDemy. Then fill Our Order Form with all your assignment instructions. Select your deadline and pay for your paper. You will get it few hours before your set deadline.
Fill in all the assignment paper details that are required in the order form with the standard information being the page count, deadline, academic level and type of paper. It is advisable to have this information at hand so that you can quickly fill in the necessary information needed in the form for the essay writer to be immediately assigned to your writing project. Make payment for the custom essay order to enable us to assign a suitable writer to your order. Payments are made through Paypal on a secured billing page. Finally, sit back and relax.
About Writedemy
We are a professional paper writing website. If you have searched a question and bumped into our website just know you are in the right place to get help in your coursework. We offer HIGH QUALITY & PLAGIARISM FREE Papers.
How It Works
To make an Order you only need to click on “Order Now” and we will direct you to our Order Page. Fill Our Order Form with all your assignment instructions. Select your deadline and pay for your paper. You will get it few hours before your set deadline.
Are there Discounts?
All new clients are eligible for 20% off in their first Order. Our payment method is safe and secure.