• lordziv@lemmy.nz
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    2 days ago

    Tbf, some of the best hackers were social engineering their way into the backend just by calling up certain support numbers in the 80s

    • skozzii@lemmy.ca
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      2 days ago

      I refuse to call social engineers hackers, conmen is more fitting.

      • Passerby6497@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        You can refuse to call them hackers, everyone is entitled to be wrong about something.

        Kevin Mitnick was a prolific hacker who used social engineering regularly to infiltrate, and hackers still do today. Humans are a massive weak point in any org, that’s why we have to take quarterly training not to be a moron and let someone into our network through doing something stupid.

        • zod000@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          16 hours ago

          Mitnick was also a hacker, but I never considered his social engineering feats as hacking themselves. They were definitely what let him accomplish his goals though and I consider those skills adjacent, just like lock picking. If you see someone picking a lock, I doubt your brain says “OMG a hacker!”.

      • Squirrelanna@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        1 day ago

        Defcon would disagree. I’ve watched so many presenters talk about all forms of penetration testing, many of which used social engineering and lockpicking as a way to create exploitable vulnerabilities in networks. Whether or not you care to call them hackers… It doesn’t really matter, won’t stop them from hacking.

      • thallamabond@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        Hacking is making something work in an unconventional or unexpected way. Social engineers hack people in that way.

      • HieroProtagonist@lemmy.ml
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        1 day ago

        Real hackers social-engineered their way into high security systems decades before the first blue haired femboy nerd proudly announced “Btw i am usin Arch!”