Last week you might have heard in the press about a phone scam that’s is supposedly sweeping the nation. The dreaded, super sneaky ‘Can you hear me’ scam. Fraudsters will ring you and ask the question “Can you hear me?”. …
Will they send a SMS or won’t they?
Recently I stumbled across a publication from HMRC, it stated the forms of communications they would use to contact the tax paying public. Example messages were displayed in an attempt to ‘whitelist’ communications. Basically, if you receive correspondence that looks …
Lawyers Must Recognise the Value of their Data
This is a copy of a guest blog authored for Ascertus Ltd, feel free to read the post over here. Whilst content in our 9 – 5 employment, slightly resentful that our personal activities aren’t getting the attention they deserve, …
Project ‘Sender ID’
Over 100 Billion SMS messages are sent per year in the U.K., whilst this figure continues to fall due to mobile device users opting to use alternative communication mediums such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Signal – we are still …
2017 and Beyond
It’s been 2 years to the day since The AntiSocial Engineer Limited was founded; The seasonal timing and also the fact we seem to be doing enough right to pay the bills have made us sit down and question where …
How to nearly buy Google.com for £8
As an English speaker, I mainly stick to Latin characters and some symbols that cover my day to day needs. I demand payment in £, I add a few &@! to my passwords and I am known to include the …
iMessage Preview Problems
In recent Apple iMessage updates, the way links are handled within an SMS message have changed significantly and this adaptation poses quite a concern for us. Early 2016 we were the first company in the UK to offer SMShing services, …
TalkTalk, one year later.
For nearly a year we have had a tale we’ve told to friends and business associates. The tale involves TalkTalk and how one day we found the data breach, alerted them and sparked the controversy that we all know to this …
How to Handle A Data Breach
To a modern business, a data breach can have devastating effects. We have seen TalkTalk hastily bungle, Sage coyly dawdle and much more generally mess it up, it’s got to change. We don’t spend all day hunting these elusive beasts either, but we have had …
Sage UK Payroll Data Breach
Personal details and bank account information for employees of as many as 300 large UK companies may have been compromised as part of a data breach at Sage, a UK accountancy software group. August 11th, 2016 Sage UK Payroll services started …
Everybody on the floor, this is a data breach
August 2nd, 2016 I find myself in a high street bank. I’d just done a 3km run, which is like a marathon to a big bloke. I enter the doors and find a queue akin to the bread lines of …
Policing Insider Threats
The term insider threat is brandished around quite a lot these days, companies often talk about the weakest link in security being people. I guess they are almost right in what they say, but I can still dream about the …
InfoSec Interviews – Richard De Vere
Original article by IT Governance: here So a while back I was interviewed by Lewis Morgan from the IT Governance Blog and thought i’d share this on the site. It is a little tongue in cheek reading it back actually! But …
How we Support Magicians, Fraudsters & Hackers
One advantage of running a small boutique consultancy is I get to steer the business activity towards subjects I personally find interesting. Throughout my career, I have always been fascinated with frauds and that is where my focus normally lies. It’s that magic-like …
Yorkshire Cyber Security Event – A reflection of the real risks
The AntiSocial Engineer Limited is supporting the Yorkshire Cyber Security Cluster to announce the first annual Yorkshire Cyber Security Event taking place on the 12th May at the 3m Buckley Innovation Centre in Huddersfield. We will be talking about our recent …
Sim Swap Fraud – Porting your digital life in minutes.
In this post, I wish to cover ‘Sim Swap Fraud’ and some of the ways we can prevent it. I’m not a natural writer, I only do these blogs in hope people will listen up and improve security. So feel free to …
Introducing SMShing Assessments
SMShing Explained SMShing is a common attack method used in the wild to target companies, using targeted text messages towards staff mobile phones. These messages can be generic or a more focused ‘spear’ type message, depending on how much information …
Abusing automated call handlers
I grew up in Yorkshire and of all the likeable local traits there is, there is one I despise. The gruff, basterdised local accent. Londoners mistakenly view you as a farmer and there is no risk of hearing the tones …
OSINT For Profit
An interesting skill we have honed over the years has been the use of OSINT techniques to gather information on a client company. For those new to all this, it’s ok because you can follow quite easily and should learn …
Rubbish Security
When considering the security threats your organisation will encounter you would be forgiven if the humble bin slipped your mind. Every instance of this invisible cyber, hacking, scare story we receive on the media these days is referring to ‘complex …