Explore the dark art of Remote Online Social Engineering (ROSE) in this Black Hat conference talk. Delve into the world of false personae activities, including trolling, sockpuppetry, bots, and catfishing through detailed case studies. Learn a comprehensive methodology for conducting ROSE campaigns, covering target selection, profile building, victim priming, and exit strategies based on real-world red team experiences. Examine traditional online deception types, analyze notable case studies, and understand the intricacies of attack methodologies. Discover defense strategies, including challenges for defenders, theories of deception, and detection techniques. Investigate the ethics and legality of ROSE, explore ways to fight back, and gain insights into future research in this field. Benefit from a ROSE detection checklist and engage with references for further study in this informative 46-minute presentation by Matt Wixey.
Every ROSE Has Its Thorn - The Dark Art of Remote Online Social Engineering
Overview
Syllabus
Intro
Traditional online deception types
Catfishing
Case study I: Mark and John (UK, 2003)
Case study II: Robin Sage (US, 2010)
Chapter II: Attack
Filters
Methodology outline
Persona construction
Establishing credibility
Building a synthetic network
The hook
Maintenance
Priming
The pay-off
Case study IV: Mia Ash (Middle East, 2017)
Case study V: Syria, 2015
Ethics and legality
Chapter III: Defence
Challenges for defenders
Understanding deception
Why do we fall for it?
Interpersonal deception theory
Expanded prominence-interpretation theory
Media richness theory
Media synchronicity theory
Communication accommodation theory
Cognitive load
Strategies, processes and detection
Detecting deception
Linguistic markers
Forensic linguistics
Case study VI: Diederik Stapel
Passive detection
Active detection
Chapter IV: Fighting back
Turning the tables
Case study VII: Shannen Rossmiller
Chapter V: Conclusions
ROSE detection checklist
Future research
Shameless plug
Black Hat Sound Bytes
Feedback, questions, collaboration
References
Taught by
Black Hat
