Marshall Brain's Blog

[See previous]

Security no match for theater lovers

From the article:

That encounter is recounted in the conference's annual pulse-taking of people's susceptibility to social engineering. The results typically are released a few weeks before Infosecurity Europe kicks off in London to drum up publicity and to track the public's propensity to easily divulge sensitive data. Last year, people at a transit station gladly gave up their passwords for a chocolate Easter egg. This year, they provided all the ingredients for their identities to be stolen for a chance to see a show.

The gist of the article is, if you offer a person some sort of simple incentive, like the chance to win a couple of theater tickets, they will give up all the information necessary for someone to steal their identity. You need to be worried anytime anyone starts asking you for a few key pieces of information like name, address, SSN, mother's maiden name, etc.