Social engineering

Social Engineer. A Novella by Ian Sutherland

  • Brody meets Mel.

    Brody meets Mel.
    Brody, a white hat hacker, sees Mel's online profile for the first time. She's a caretaker in an elderly home and an animals rights activist.
  • Brody and Mel go out on their first date.

    Brody and Mel go out on their first date.
    Brody tells Mel he's a location scout for the movie industy among other lies about his personal life.
  • Brody and Mel go on a second date.

    Brody and Mel go on a second date.
    Brody takes Mel to a movie set in London, as part of the lie about his career.
  • Mel sees Brody while he's working

    Mel sees Brody while he's working
    She catches him dressed as a pizza delivery boy while he is doing a pentest in a company. He is able to lie his way out of the situation.
  • Brody and Mel go to a dinner party

    Brody and Mel go to a dinner party
    Talking to her activist friends, they say that unless they have inside footage of pharmas misstreating animals, they'll never have a case.
  • Mel tells Brody she loves him.

    Mel tells Brody she loves him.
    Brody feels guilty about all the lies he've said and comes up with a plan to show her how deeply he loves her and then tell her the truth about his life.
  • Brody starts researching HTL

    Brody starts researching HTL
    Setting in motion the plan to prove his love for Mel, the first thing Brody does is to get the private mobile phone number for HTL's Director.
  • Brody calls Dr. Moorcroft

    Brody calls Dr. Moorcroft
    He pretends to be a security officer from a government agency informing that the most important project of HTL is being stolen by chinese hackers. His aim being HTL hires him as a pentester.
  • Brody starts the pentest in HTL

    Brody starts the pentest in HTL
    Brody starts the pentest he himself created the need for in order to get some footage of the cruel way animals are treated in HTL drug tests.
    He starts by collecting all the information he needs from social networks and the company's own help desk and employers.
  • Brody goes into HTL

    Brody goes into HTL
    Brody gets into HTL to perform the final part of his plan. He gets in as a Cisco ingineer, later he gets an HTL employer's entrance card and finaly he dresses himself as a cleaner.
  • Brody gets into the most secured area of the HTL network.

    Brody gets into the most secured area of the HTL network.
    He does it by leaving stranded USB sticks in public areas. Employees are bound to take them and insert them into their PCs to find out who they belong to. By doing so, an auto-running program steals their usernames and passwords.
  • Brody presents the brefing to HTL executives

    Brody presents the brefing to HTL executives
    Brody shows the board how he managed to get hold of information abut the most important and secure project of the company. Showing how vulnerable they really are. The head of the security department grows angrier and angrier during the presentation.
  • Brody tells Mel the truth and she leaves him.

    Brody tells Mel the truth and she leaves him.
    He presents her with the footage he gathered from HTL which contains proof of the way they used animals to test drugs. He hopes this would convince her of forgiving him for all the lies. But it doesn't and she leaves him.
  • Brody leavs the USB stick with the incriminating evidence on a restaurant's table

    Heartbroken, Brody decides to leave the USB stick with the footage where it was, not minding if someone else finds it.