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Cybersecurity: Beware of friend invites
In a "previous life," I was engaged to teach a course on social engineering as part of an information security programme for MNCs. To illustrate the point that innocuous information shared on social media can be used for nefarious intents, I told the story of a girl named Robin Sage.
Robin Sage was a fictional profile created by US cyber threat analyst Thomas Ryan. Ryan created Robin in December 2009 using the picture of an attractive female. According to Robin’s social media profiles on Facebook, LinkedIn, and LinkedIn, she was 25-year-old, a graduate of MIT, had 10 years of work experience, and she was now working as a cyber threat analyst at the Naval Network Warfare Command in Norfolk, Virginia.
Using the profile, "Robin" sent connection requests to nearly 300 people in the security, military, and intelligence agencies. Despite the dubious information in the profile, "Robin" was able to befriend men and women of all ages during a short period of time with almost all of them working for the United States military, government or government-related companies. "Robin" was even offered consulting work with notable companies, given private documents to review, and was invited to speak at several conferences.
