Chocolate - Secret Weapon of the Social Engineer

Kevin Mitnick once said, “Companies spend millions of dollars on firewalls and secure access devices, and it's money wasted because none of these measures address the weakest link in the security chain: the people who use, administer and operate computer systems.” While everyone know this axiom to be true, it is still somewhat surprising to discover how true it is. In London, a team of researchers polled random people exiting the Liverpool Street Station to see who would reveal various bits of personal information like birthdays, phone numbers and passwords. They found that roughly two out of every three women would give away their password for a chocolate bar. Men gave away information (though not passwords) when the incentive was raised to be entered into a fake drawing for a trip to Paris.