Best social engineering of the year?

Major Variola (ret.) mv at cdc.gov
Fri Sep 5 09:25:33 PDT 2003


http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/09/04/1062548967124.html

On the night of Wednesday, August 27, two men dressed as computer
technicians and carrying tool bags entered the cargo processing and
intelligence centre at Sydney International Airport.

The men, described as being of Pakistani-Indian-Arabic appearance, took
a lift to the third floor of the Charles Ulm building in Link Road, next
to the customs handling depot and the Qantas Jet Base.

They presented themselves to the security desk as technicians sent by
Electronic Data Systems, the outsourced customs computer services
provider which regularly sends people to work on computers after normal
office hours.

After supplying false names and signatures, they were given access to
the top-security mainframe room. They knew the room's location and no
directions were needed.

Inside, they spent two hours disconnecting two computers, which they put
on trolleys and wheeled out of the room, past the security desk, into
the lift and out of the building.

The brazen theft has prompted Australia's top security agencies to
conduct emergency damage audits amid fears that terrorists may have
gained access to highly sensitive intelligence from the computers.

<snip>





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