This month our Influencers from Around the World guest post comes from Debbie Hixson, a Cialdini Method Certified Trainer (CMCT®). She is a Senior Organization Development Consultant from Kaiser Permanente and a National Board Certified Counselor. You can read more about her here. I know you’ll enjoy what Debbie has to share.
Brian Ahearn, CMCT® Chief Influence Officer influencePEOPLE Helping You Learn to Hear “Yes”.The Impact of Liking on Voting and Other RelationshipsHow will you decide whom to support in this presidential election? Will your candidate share your views about the problems in this country and how to solve them? Do they share your values and beliefs? Do they have a similar background or have you shared similar experiences growing up and making your way in the world?Some of us are very clear about who will we vote for and why. An article in my local newspaper interviewed several people and for them the answer is simple; their candidate shares their beliefs about what is important and what needs to be done to get our country back on track. They aren’t from the same background, but they do share a common philosophy about life. Guided by their perceptions about the person they support, whom they will vote for in the general election is very clear. What makes us gravitate towards some people and not others? Why do we form relationships so easily with some people and not others? Why do we collaborate and cooperate with some people effortlessly, while with others it is a challenge? How can we be influential and persuasive with some groups or individuals and less so with others? The answer is not complicated. It is based on a principle Dr. Robert Cialdini calls “Liking.” He says that we like people who are like us. Based on liking them, we will be more open to their requests to cooperate with them. Let’s be clear, liking is based on our perception of what we share in common with others that predisposes us to like them. Dr. Cialdini also says that we tend to like people who compliment us – that is they tell us what they like about us, which makes us like them even more. We also like people who cooperate with us.So how do you get people to like you? Norman Vincent Peale says that getting people to like you is merely the other side of liking them. Think about someone you want to work with more closely. What do you know about them? Do you share common interests? Did you attend the same school? Do you share a passion for the same sports team or the same hobbies? You can foster liking based on the similarity principle if you claim to have a similar background and interests as the person. The principle can be applied in all types of situations, at home and at work. Liking can be applied to family, friends, colleagues and customers. In my own practice as a coach and trainer, I need my clients to cooperate with me. I begin my relationships with clients by finding out a bit about them and then make a connection to own my interests and background to establish liking. I often find that I have many things in common with the people I meet. Establishing commonalities makes us all feel more relaxed and grounded particularly in new situations. Once I establish a connection, it is important for my work to like the other person. When I like someone, I tell them so. After all, if we like to cooperate with people who like us, letting them know helps facilitate your partnership. Cooperating with others will also help establish liking. When we share goals in common, we develop a fondness for “our partners” who are helping us achieve a goal, deal with problems, make a decision, etc. So whom can you cooperate with? When you have something to ask of them, they will be more likely to say yes, because you cooperated with them. Dr. Cialdini advises us to like our colleagues, customers or clients. When they see that you like them, they feel safe. They’ll have a good reason to feel safe because you will make sure that the people you like are treated well. You’ll make sure that they’re protected and their interests are served. This is really turning that rule on its ear where clients are saying, “The best place for me to purchase a product is not in the hands of someone I like who’s an expert, it’s in the hands of someone who likes me and is an expert.”Think about ways you can increase liking by identifying commonalities you have with people you work with – or would like to work with – and make sure they know. And, when you like them make sure to share that as well. 
Debbie Hixson, M.A., M.Ed, CMCT
How to Make New Year’s Resolutions Stick
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A Hacking Scenario: How Hackers Choose Their Victims
See the step-by-step ways the average hacker looks for valuable data. 
By: David EllisBusiness owners who have suffered a data breach at the hands of some hacker often say, “Why me? Why did the hacker choose our business?” Many people think hackers selectively pick each business they hack. However, I suspect that in 90% or more of the businesses that are hacked, it all began based with the random discovery of a hackable vulnerability. Hackers typically begin a data breach scenario by conducting port scans across large ranges of IP addresses, specifically looking for certain open ports that may provide them a place to start digging. Let me take you through a typical hacking scenario.1) Scan for open ports
The hacker starts by running a port scan to probe a large range of IP addresses, and then he heads off to bed and lets the scan run all night. The goal is to find particular open ports to exploit a known or potential vulnerability. In the morning the hacker peruses the results of last night’s port scan, looking for certain ports that are actively “listening” (meaning they’re open). He likely has some automation at work that gives him a list of IP addresses with port numbers, 20, 21, 23, 513, 3389, 5631, 5632, and so on. He’s interested in these exact ports (and a handful of others) because they all relate to some form of remote access into their networks. For example, if a hacker sees ports 5631 and 5632 are open, he knows the remote access application pcAnywhere is installed and active. Or if he sees port 3389 is open, he knows Windows Remote Desktop is likely configured. If he can hack the remote access credentials, he doesn’t have to worry at all about complex firewall configurations or other perimeter protections.If the remote access application was not configured to require two-factor authentication, he can probably guess the username and crack the password, and once he’s done that, he’s in. Everything on your system that you can see, he can see as well.SEE ALSO: Infographic: Cybercriminals Love When You Use Remote Access2) Try out default passwordsMany users fail to change or delete the default username or password that was configured with their remote access product when it was first installed. So, the hacker merely begins by trying the known pcAnywhere (or Windows Remote Desktop, or VNC, or FTP or whatever other remote tool) default username and password. At this point, does the hacker know that he’s attacking Acme Hardware? No. And he doesn’t care. He’s simply attacking a potential vulnerability via port 5631. The IP address might be for a business or it could be my grandmother’s ten-year-old PC. If the default password was left on the system, the attacker has now successfully gained access to the system. If the default password tactic doesn’t work, it’s just a minor inconvenience. Password cracking tools are plentiful and are getting more powerful all the time. At this point, the hacker runs his password-cracking tool and takes off for lunch while the tool does the heavy lifting. When he returns in an hour, or a couple of days, his tools have often detected the needed password, and he’s in.SEE ALSO: Two Factor Authentication – Security Beyond PasswordsThere are other, even less technical ways to breach perimeter security like imbedding malware in online games or other legitimate website activities and waiting for users to inadvertently download a RAT to their system. (RATS are remote access trojans, and can be purchased online for just $40. They give the hacker covert remote access and establish persistent backdoor access to your system.) These types of malware can also be accidentally installed by the user through an email phishing scam.Follow for more data security articles like this3) Once he has controlWhether the hacker cracked your remote access credentials or you opened a malicious email link, you’re now in the hacker’s clutches and he begins prospecting. Up to this point the hacker still doesn’t know if he’s hacked a business or a personal computer. Now, he looks for evidence that the system holds information of value, such as credit card account numbers, banking, real estate, or healthcare records (since these often contain social security numbers or other data that he can turn into a payday). To discover the nature of the environment where he has landed, the hacker will often run keyword searches. For example, if his keyword searches discover the system he’s hacked is a Micros system, he knows he’s in a business that accepts credit cards. (Micros is a provider of POS hardware and software used by many hotels, restaurants and other small businesses.) He will probably try Micros default passwords to try to get into their server. 4) Install malwareIf the hacker is successful in breaching a commerce environment, he will attempt to install data-capturing malware on the POS system. His malware will seek to detect credit card data, capture it, and export it out of the system. He then either reproduces the stolen credit cards or sells the stolen account data on the black market. Depending on the malware installed, from the point of malware installation through the moment that the breach is detected and eradicated, every single customer credit card transaction made on that computer (and perhaps on the entire network) would be at risk.5) Search for affiliated IP addresses
By now, the hacker has probably sifted through enough company data to realize he’s hacked Acme Hardware. The hacker realizes he’s hit a potential jackpot, because Acme Hardware is a national chain (in this scenario). Since the hacker doesn’t know the IP addresses of the other chain locations, hacking them could be difficult. However, if he finds remnant data on the system that includes the other IP addresses, or connections to the corporate servers, Acme Hardware could be in some serious trouble (we’ve seen many cases where the breach of a single locale lead the hacker to the corporate environment and all of the stores in the chain). Remnant data left on systems does occur. In a forensic investigation we conducted, a POS installer inadvertently left a partial client list on a POS system that contained the names and IP addresses of 28 other clients. All 28 were also hacked because of a careless installer. 6) Leave no traceAt this point, the hacker has a couple of choices: he can leave the malware in place and harvest customer credit card data until the breach is discovered and/or the vulnerability is closed (the most common alternative in commerce breaches), or he can choose to clean up his tracks and get out of the hacked system (seen in cases of corporate espionage or theft of corporate secrets). Most attackers cover their tracks to avoid detection. They encrypt card data before transferring it out of a system, erase or modify security logs, run malware from RAM instead of the hard drive, which often goes undetected by most antivirus software, and employ many other “anti-forensic” tactics in order to escape unseen. SEE ALSO: How do Hackers Hack?Hackers don’t care who you are. They just care how rich you can make them.Now that you understand hackers don’t pick and choose their hacking victims out of the phone book, you should also understand the flaw in the common belief held by small businesses, “I’m too small for a hacker to care about me!”A hacker doesn’t care if you’re small. He just cares if you have data from which he can profit.
TweetSo it’s more crucial than ever to implement data security! Need help securing your data? Talk to one of our consultants! David Ellis (GCIH, QSA, PFI, CISSP) is Director of Forensic Investigations at SecurityMetrics with over 25 years of law enforcement and investigative experience. Check out his other blog posts.
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