I read an article about ransomware affecting the public transportation service in Kansas, and I wanted to ask how this can happen. Wikipedia says these are “are typically carried out using a Trojan, entering a system through, for example, a malicious attachment, embedded link in a phishing email, or a vulnerability in a network service,” but how? Wouldn’t someone still have to deliberately click a malicious link to install it? Wouldn’t anyone working for such an agency be educated enough about these threats not to do so?
I wanted to ask in that community, but I was afraid this is such a basic question that I felt foolish posting it there. Does anyone know the exact process by which this typically can happen? I’ve seen how scammers can do this to individuals with low tech literacy by watching Kitboga, but what about these big agencies?
Edit: After reading some of the responses, it’s made me realize why IT often wants to heavily restrict what you can do on a work PC, which is frustrating from an end user perspective, but if people are just clicking links in emails and not following basic internet safety, then damn.
What do you mean by “the cleaners”?
Probably the literal cleaners who come in to clean the building before/after hours.
Oh, okay. I forget that large businesses and agencies like schools can have their own cleaning staff with access to technology.
I once heard this story about a company, that had a server room. The room was locked so no-one could get in without permission, which is a good practice. At some point, they started to wonder why one of their servers becomes unreachable every Friday at X o’clock. Eventually, they figured out that their new cleaner entered the server room every Friday and unplugged one of the power cables to plug the vacuum cleaner in to the outlet.
How the fuck
Janitors and custodians get way more unrestricted access than most people realize.
I used to deliver pizzas on a military base, and the amount of restricted areas I got in with no more than a pizza and a uniform shirt is ridiculous.
Social hacking is the way to do it
I did a hardware upgrade for a hospital a few years ago. People let me in all kinds of sensitive areas just because I had a PC in my hands and knew someone in their department’s name. The only time anyone bothered to verify I was supposed to be there was when I was doing an install in the maintenance guys’ office.
This is always a fun experiment when you are doing contracted IT work. In my experience in large organizations with multiple facilities where everyone does not know everyone, looking the part and having confidence when you ask someone to let you in the server room is all it takes to get in. They aren’t surprised you don’t know where it is. Helps to have a Catalyst switch in one hand.
For physical security though, badged entry to the building especially with a foyer where guests wait on a routine basis, and a strong anti-tailgating culture where everyone must badge in, will go a long way to getting normal people to pay attention. Not as easy in publicly accessible places like a hospital or some of the places I was working.
That’s how we were at my last job.
The tailgating thing was only allowed if you could see their badge, and with the exception of being on a clean suit, your badge was to be visible at all times, and we were trained and told to check for badges as we were walking around the facility.
Forgetting your badge was a bitch though, there was literally only one door that could be opened from the outside without a badge and that was the front desk.
That must be nice. My company does a lot of work for one of the world’s largest chip manufacturers and getting access to some of their facilities is like pulling teeth. Somebody forgot to submit the right paperwork, it didn’t go to the correct department or project manager, this facility is always locked down on the third Tuesday of every month, for reasons, you name it I’ve encountered it.
I wish our military bases were that secure
Facility management nowadays is outsourced to third party agencies. Usually the pay and working times are shit and they are consistently understaffed. At the same time they usually get access to most regular offices and they work before or after the offices fill.
For a more concerted effort finding out which companies clean at which offices and enrolling there is not much of a thing. And voila you get access to all physical computers, can plant key loggers or other tools, or just malicious USB Sticks or similiar on the site.
Not in the context of IT security, but for instance in Berlin Germany a group of robbers that stole the 100 kg gold maple leaf coin, hired someone a few month earlier with the security guard agency of the museum it was presented at.
Oh, I see! So they could literally pay a member of the cleaning staff to install such a thing. I hadn’t even considered this!
Or just get the job yourself.
Most cleaning crews aren’t as rigorously checked as r&d even though they have more physical access than r&d
The people who push the brooms and empty the trash bins.
The people who do the cleaning