Social engineering: My career as a professional bank robber

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://www.csoonline.com/article/692550/social-engineering-my-career-as-a-professional-bank-robber-

By Joan Goodchild
Senior Editor
CSO
October 26, 2011

Jim Stickley got his first computer at age 12, and he was chatting with 
other computer "nerds" on bulletin board sites by the time he was 16. A 
wannabe hacker, Stickley said his first foray into playing the system 
was with free codes -- codes that would exclude his phone and computer 
time from racking up charges that would incur the wrath of his parents.

"I started learning the phone systems early. I ended up getting my hands 
on a lot of old PacBell manuals and I figured out how systems work," 
said Stickley, now the CTO of TraceSecurity, a security consultancy 
based in both Louisiana and California.

As an adult, Stickley channeled his computer and hacking passions into a 
legitimate career in network security, but soon realized that hardware 
and software were only part of the security equation.

"When I was spending time testing the network for companies, I would see 
all these people come and go. You'd see the water delivery guy, or 
someone else, just come and wander around," he recalled. "It dawned on 
me I could probably just walk in and steal all the data that they were 
paying me to secure on the network."

So when Stickley founded Trace Security, he decided to place an emphasis 
on securing the network and testing the security of the people around 
it, too. It was a tough sell when the company first launched.

[...]


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