Would there be a modern version of this? I haven't read it and I'm interested, but mostly my parents are getting old, and with AI on the corner, I fear a bit the next level scams.
How would you classify supply-chain attacks?
Primary security was bypassed by breaking secondary security .. so there was security to be overcome, there was no social engineering aside from understanding procedures in play, and no disgruntled employees.
https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/feature/SolarWinds-hack-ex...
https://forensiccontrol.com/guides/unravelling-the-moveit-ha...
Over time they got more interesting and less like the "basic unsophisticated | opportunistic | social engineer | inside agent" description given above.
Back in 2003 or so, my boss showed up at my desk at work, and looked like he was about to blow a gasket. There was a hack that was on the news, and it was getting featured in news stories all over the world.
He basically said he was going to fire me if it turned out it was my fault. (I built the servers that held the data that was compromised.)
Within a day, it turned out that it wasn't all the data, it was just one person, who had a lot of famous friends.
What had happened was that someone had accessed her account. The way that they did it was by guessing her password. Her password was the same as her dog's name, and she was a celebrity known to be seen at events with her dog.
He called someone, claimed to be an authority, knew the lingo, asked for help and time was the critical.
Someone calls your parents and claims to be an authority figure, that there is a crisis, and they must act now.