Anyone want to read an SE Essay?

[Trcx528]

and give me some feed back?  It's not done yet, but I consider it presentable.  Writing it for my final project in my college writing course.  I welcome any and all legitimate criticism.   

[Ironman]

I don't even know what an SE is. 

[ghoulmaster]

I would stay away from the word "prove" my bio teacher went on this huge rant that you dont ever "prove" anything and you should always substitute in a different word. like maybe "I intend to show that your..."

this line: "In this paper I intend to prove that your corporation can easily be hack through various means, the easiest being social engineering. "

maybe this: "In this paper I intend to show that your corporation can easily be hacked through various attack vectors, the easiest being social engineering. "

[ghoulmaster]

line: "Social Engineering (S.E.) is just what it sounds like, people trying to conjure up ways to “engineer” people to disclose information that they really should not."

think of what say a mechanical engineer does: a mechanical engineer takes already established techniques that involve creating, maintaining, or destorying some mechanical system. Or they can establish new techniques for acheiving such motives.

I would try and sum-up SE'ing more like that but replace the word mechanical with social.

[ghoulmaster]

line: "No excuse will ever suffice to appease and anger customer when there credit card data was stolen.  *snip*  Therefore invest in security; there is no logical excuse not too.  And by all means, please educate the users, they are the primary holes, shouldn’t they become your first defense?"

could you please tell me the difference between there, their, and they're? no you cant because you used the wrong one in the first quoted sentence!

I would change "they are the primary holes" to "they are the primary vulnerabilities"

[Ironman]

Oh. Didn't connect the S.E. to Social Engineering. Must have had a mental block for a minute. Now I feel foolish. 

[Trcx528]

Like i said it's presentable (a.k.a. My ideas make sense) but it isn't finalized. I'll make those corrections when I get home.

[Trcx528]

I would stay away from the word "prove" my bio teacher went on this huge rant that you dont ever "prove" anything and you should always substitute in a different word. like maybe "I intend to show that your..."

this line: "In this paper I intend to prove that your corporation can easily be hack through various means, the easiest being social engineering. "

maybe this: "In this paper I intend to show that your corporation can easily be hacked through various attack vectors, the easiest being social engineering. "

Funnily enough my professor wants me to use the "Intend to prove..." phraseology.  LOL He says something about having a strong thesis or something like that. 

line: "Social Engineering (S.E.) is just what it sounds like, people trying to conjure up ways to “engineer” people to disclose information that they really should not."

think of what say a mechanical engineer does: a mechanical engineer takes already established techniques that involve creating, maintaining, or destorying some mechanical system. Or they can establish new techniques for acheiving such motives.

I would try and sum-up SE'ing more like that but replace the word mechanical with social.

Good point, I need to rephrase that section anyways for my predocs. 

line: "No excuse will ever suffice to appease and anger customer when there credit card data was stolen.  *snip*  Therefore invest in security; there is no logical excuse not too.  And by all means, please educate the users, they are the primary holes, shouldn’t they become your first defense?"

could you please tell me the difference between there, their, and they're? no you cant because you used the wrong one in the first quoted sentence!

I would change "they are the primary holes" to "they are the primary vulnerabilities"

Ya, I finished writing this at 1 am tuesday morning and haven't had time to do a complete read through, thanks for that.

Oh. Didn't connect the S.E. to Social Engineering. Must have had a mental block for a minute. Now I feel foolish. 

happens to the best of us   any way, I made it confusing because I didn't spell out.

[ghoulmaster]

Funnily enough my professor wants me to use the "Intend to prove..." phraseology.  LOL He says something about having a strong thesis or something like that.

Lol thats alright, the main points where that should be used carfully is in any scientific field.

[Trcx528]

Ya, this isn't a scientific essay, it's just a writing class.  My assignment was to write a 3-5 page essay on anything I wanted, as long as I could tie it back to the business impact.  Any general comments about the content/word choice/flow/etc?  That's what I really need right now, I can go clean up the bugs later, I just want to get everything else laid out first. 

BTW: I was tempted to make a malicious word/pdf doc and post it on here, if I had time I probably would have. Just saying that everyone is susceptible to social engineering. 

[ghoulmaster]

Ya, this isn't a scientific essay, it's just a writing class.  My assignment was to write a 3-5 page essay on anything I wanted, as long as I could tie it back to the business impact.  Any general comments about the content/word choice/flow/etc?  That's what I really need right now, I can go clean up the bugs later, I just want to get everything else laid out first. 

BTW: I was tempted to make a malicious word/pdf doc and post it on here, if I had time I probably would have. Just saying that everyone is susceptible to social engineering.

lol well im running linux so i found an online docx viewer and used that

[Trcx528]

Lame speaking of docx exploits I just installed a security update to office that patched a hole allowing and "unauthenticated remote attacker" to run code.  You should have seen the face palm, it was epic as I wondered "why do I need to use office again?" and then realized that my school required it. 

[Divinite]

Ya, this isn't a scientific essay, it's just a writing class.  My assignment was to write a 3-5 page essay on anything I wanted, as long as I could tie it back to the business impact.  Any general comments about the content/word choice/flow/etc?  That's what I really need right now, I can go clean up the bugs later, I just want to get everything else laid out first. 

BTW: I was tempted to make a malicious word/pdf doc and post it on here, if I had time I probably would have. Just saying that everyone is susceptible to social engineering.

Not since I have a malitious PDF scanner and creator..... Trcx, you can't catch me.

[Trcx528]

What if I used my zero day exploit? o_O

[A12danrulz]

*cough bull**** cough*