How I was almost phished because of a hamburger
TL;DR A cybersecurity expert almost fell victim to a phishing site while trying to replace his wife’s Instapot. Despite his experience, he ignored red flags due to hunger and emotional distraction. The experience taught him a valuable lesson about the importance of understanding the human element in social engineering attacks and the need to be vigilant, even when emotions and hunger cloud judgment. The moral of the story is to “eat before you click” and be cautious when making online transactions, especially when under pressure or distracted.
I’ve spent over 15 years working in the field, where I’ve encountered all sorts of social engineering tactics, from run-of-the-mill spam emails to sophisticated phishing sites and whaling attacks. I have triaged hundreds of suspected phishing emails, reviewing their tactics, dissecting their headers and investigating their intent. Despite my experience and formal training, which have honed my skills in spotting phishing attempts, I recently found myself on the receiving end of a convincing phishing site. It was a humbling experience, but one that I’m grateful for, as it taught me a valuable lesson.
It all started last Friday morning. It had been an exhausting, non-stop, commercial-free, fun-packed week at work and at home. After I left the office, I had just enough time to throw on some jeans and take my family out to dinner before church. We decided to go to a small diner for dinner instead of our usual spot and I wanted to splurge a little bit and treat myself, so I ordered The Deluxe Burger with onion rings (big mistake).
My wife often jokes that I’m like Joey from “Friends” due to my love of food. After chasing our toddler around the diner, I finally sat down to enjoy my hamburger, only to be disappointed… The Deluxe Burger was… tiny. My wife was equally disappointed in her meal but I consoled myself with the thought of us getting dessert, but our time ran out and we had to leave before we could indulge in a sweet treat.
Later that evening, after we got home, I was “hangry” and needed a snack. As I rummaged through our tiny kitchen, I nudged the Instapot on the stove back to make some room to prepare my snack, which accidentally turned on the back burner of the stove, where the Instapot was. Before I realized what was happening, the Instapot had started to melt, filling the kitchen with the smell of burning plastic. The Instapot was toast. My wife was devastated and I was in trouble.
She had found the Instapot on sale during Black Friday, and it had become her go-to kitchen appliance. Having a new family, my wife loved the convenience and ease of cooking with an Instapot. I felt terrible for ruining it, especially since she does so much for our family and asks for nothing in return. I immediately started searching for a replacement online, scouring the web for a new Instapot. Local retailers didn’t have the right model, and Amazon Prime would take too long to deliver, so I expanded my search to surrounding areas. However, everything I found was either too expensive or had a long delivery time.
Just as I was about to give up, a message pops up from my wife, it’s a link with a picture of an Instapot. “I found this one on sale, its at [a local chain retailer]” she yelled from the bedroom. “Yes, I’m not in trouble!” I quickly clicked on the link to check it out. I saw the store logo and everything looked good! However, as I tried to log in, my password manager didn’t populate the credentials.Red Flag #1 I brushed it off, thinking that maybe I had registered on the app instead of the website and never saved the credentials. “Guest checkout it is…”
As I proceeded to the checkout, I realized there was no area to use my store credit card. Red Flag #2. I tried to rationalize it, thinking that maybe the website had a weird GUI thing that needed me to enter the card number manually first to recognize it as a store credit card. I even entered my credit card number, despite my better judgment. (I know, shame on me.) However, the website’s fields still did not offer any additional options, and the dynamic credit card logo on the credit card field showed the wrong logo. Red Flag #3. It finally made me pause. Something isn’t right.
It was then that I looked up at the URL and realized that it wasn’t the actual website of the local chain store, it was “SomeRandomWords.shop” My heart sank, and I felt a wave of panic wash over me. I had almost fallen victim to a phishing site, and I had come close to giving away all my credit card information. Not to mention they have my newly registered, never been in a data breach, pristine email address. More on that in another upcoming post.
The next day, I was still ruminating on the event, performing a “lessons learned” in my head. What went wrong? The failure: I’m human. The experience taught me that even myself, with years of experience and training, I am capable of making mistakes and letting emotions cloud my judgment. I’ve said before, that it’s never just one failure that leads to a successful phishing, but rather a series of events and human errors. Now I understand just how true that is.
To improve training and safeguards, I’ve always emphasized the importance of understanding the human element in social engineering attacks. To that end, I’ve made it a point to interview individuals who have fallen prey to phishing scams, seeking to understand the thought processes and circumstances that led them to click on a malicious link or provide sensitive information. But nothing compares to the humbling experience of nearly falling victim to a phishing attack myself.
This experience has given me a deeper understanding of how emotions and cognition play a role in social engineering attacks. Until you’ve been in the shoes of a victim, it’s difficult to truly understand how these failures happen, and the intricate psychological dynamics involved. Having gone through it myself, I’ll be able to provide more effective training and, more importantly, offer greater empathy and understanding to those who have fallen victim to similar attacks. You never know how the victims day started or what might be going on in their life that led to the event. These criminals are professionals and experts at what they do, that coupled with human emotions, it is a dangerous combination that can catch even the most vigilant and security-conscious individuals off guard.
The takeaway? Don’t let hunger get the best of you, or you might just take the bait. Eat before you click.
This article was written by a human and then processed through AI (Llama 3.3 70B) for improved readability and structure.