New Blog Purpose

This is Chris Harter's new security blog for IST 323. In this blog I will be posting my opinions on different IT security news and my experiences with IT security. I am going to be posting 3 to 4 times per short assignment based on the length of my posts. For my first post I am going to talk about my own experience as a "hacker." Don't worry I didn't do anything illegal so you won't have to call the cops after  reading this.
My girlfriend is a sophomore at LeMoyne and has lived in two different dorms the last two years. To get into their dorms just like Syracuse students swipe their ID (something you have authentication). There have been times where instead of waiting for her to answer the door someone from LeMoyne have been entering their dorm and I have walked right behind them and into the dorm. I never thought anything of it until I started taking IST 323.
After reading our textbook and being in lecture, I have learned this type of hack is called tailgating. Tailgating is exactly what it sounds like, it's walking behind someone who has authentication and looking like you belong there to gain access to a place you are not authorized to be in.
Obviously I was not doing anything malicious, I was just seeing my girlfriend. It made me chuckle when I tailgated someone last week. Over the past 2 years I have tailgated at least 15 times. But then it made me think what if I was somewhere else. Or what if I was somebody dangerous? All I had to do is smile and say thank you and I was in. If we were somewhere with more security I know I would not have been let in. It all comes back to the need to train people to not be susceptible to social engineering.
But all in all, this is just a fun story of how I accidentally became a hacker even if it was the lamest hacker of all time.


Thanks for reading there will be another post tomorrow!

--Chris