Tailgating

No, not the typical meaning, which is an excuse for some to get riotously drunk and engorged before one enters the gates of a sporting event to watch elaborately dressed men carry a pig-bladder up and down a cow pasture – the tailgating that is referenced here is the ‘entering’ part – but not so much a sporting event as a company headquarters or other security-laden building that one would otherwise not have access to…think ‘Mission Impossible,’ but less glorified. Tailgating is where someone waits inconspicuously yet capriciously in a crowd and waits for someone, or even better, a group of someones, who has legitimate access to a security-keyed building or facility and unobtrusively slips in to the crowd or slips into the building discreetly – their access seems legitimate as it appears they are either being escorted by a genuine employ or with a sanctioned group. This is one way that companies ‘hack’ one another in a tangible sense to obtain sensitive data or marketing or product information…a corporate spy, if you will. Baiting is another technique, often used hand-in-hand with tailgating, and involves leaving some form of hardware with a label that may generate curiosity when found in an inconspicuous location like a bathroom or parking lot, though the label ‘top secret’ may be too obvious but “Executive’s vacation photos” would not. Once inserted, this hardware introduces malware onto the company’s server, allowing the malicious proprietor access to files they desire. Another nefarious social engineering scam some may be familiar with is phishing…think emails that read the equivalent of “Credit card number verification needed to ensure security.” Nigeria has profiteered exorbitantly from this one. While most of us have probably not been ‘pretexted’ by any investigative organization and had our houses bugged with listening devices by someone under the guise of an electrician or telecommunications specialist, someone may have had someone else enter in their home and commit larceny without ‘breaking and entering’, per say. This is not a tactical countermeasure rant, but an informant that could help in being “as wise as serpents but as innocent as doves”…the wise part comes in being aware the schemes and scams, the innocent part in not committing them.