Kevin Mitnick Discusses Using Social Engineering to Gain Entry in to Telephone Company's Central Hub

You would think an office which is responsible for ensuring the integrity of the electronic communications for the largest city on the western coast of the United States would be a pretty secure location.  Below is Kevin Mitnick discussing how he and a friend (a guy who subsequently became a government witness against him) gained  access to a Los Angeles telecommunications company's central hub.  He also covers this in detail in his biography, Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World's Most Wanted Hacker.

Check out our book review at http://blog.thesecuritydialogue.org/2011/09/100th-blog-post-and-book-review-ghost.html.  

After watching this video, you'll realize why Mitnick's greatest talent wasn't in phone hacking (phreaking) but in social engineering.

Why is my Walmart more protected than my kid's preschool?

Walmart has the lowest prices in town on a lot of items.  This is probably because they're often the only store in some towns.  Recently, I took my son to my local Walmart and began to notice the amount of exterior cameras that were there.  I counted 45!  Then, I began to think of how many must be inside and I remembered seeing they had a roving vehicle patrol contracted to a major security company.  That's when it hit how serious these guys are about their stuff during holiday shopping season or any season for that matter.  Geezo.

FREE CCTV Training

Closed circuit television systems are in just about every corner of the globe and monitor a huge portion of our lives.  It has been argued, since their inception, we allow them greater access to us than most people we know intimately.  If you have anything to do with security, these cameras and the software which accompany can also be part of your daily work life.   Often times, in security, it is difficult finding free online training on any particular topic especially the fundamentals of CCTV systems.  

Thankfully, the folks at IP Video Market Info were kind of enough to create a blog post which contains hyperlinks to 

"series of videos from Pelco that provide strong coverage of these fundamentals (note: you can download the videos from Pelco's site as well).

The focus of this series is on traditional CCTV.  To complement this, you should read guides on IP video surveillance. Two in-depth guides are available - Axis's Technical Guide to Network Video and Vivotek's IP Video Surveillance Handbook.

Finally, review our tutorials directory for dozens of resources introducing video surveillance and our free Video Surveillance Book."

Did I mention this was FREE training?  Who doesn't like "free" anything particularly when its offered by the guys behind the machines?  What a great starting point to learn more about these systems and how to operate, install, and manage them.

Feel free to check out the rest of the article and training they have available at:
http://ipvideomarket.info/report/cctv_introduction_training_video