Only if you think that spearphishing is purely social engineering. Sure that's a critical aspect of it but phishing emails can also contain technical exploits...cracking.

You're right. Education in a formal setting simply doesn't convert to practical knowledge. That's a method best left to theoretical subjects.

But you're going to have a tough time arguing that *training* doesn't work: which is what PhishMe is selling. Teach employees to recognize phishing emails by actually sending them inoculated phishing emails. When employees fall for it you let them in on the game immediately and seize that invaluable teachable moment.

Back in the day we were trying to get any exploitative hacking to be called "cracking". Note Jurassic Park's "I prefer to be called a hacker." line.

It didn't take completely. We got "hacking" to be relatively accepted into the mainstream vernacular but "hacker" remains in a kind of grey area and "hacked" is entirely negative.

It's not about being dumb, it's about not being aware. If the first phishing email you come across is one that's technically advanced and well written enough to slip through the technological filter: then you as a corporate employee are probably going to fall for it. Especially if it's a true spear-phishing email that's targeting *you*. It'll look like an email from your boss with yet another emailed PDF or DOCX report to review. Bam.

The solution that PhishMe proposes is to safely expose employees to phishing emails on a regular basis and teach everyone to recognize actual phishing emails from those demonstrations. The human reading the email and about to click the link or open the attachment is your last line of defense and shouldn't be neglected as such.

Yes exactly! The sheer number of exploit hooks into even modern/patched operating systems is simply depressing.

It IS hard to teach common sense, but it's not hard to demonstrate it. That's what PhishMe does. Shows employees how to recognize phishing emails by exposing them to safe phishing emails. Think of it as a vaccine.

This is what passes for +5 insightful these days?

The issue isn't opening an email: but clicking a link in that email or, worse, clicking a link that takes you to a legitimate looking site and entering data, or opening an attachment in a legitimate looking email.

There are all sorts of attack vectors present from an email message. To sweep it all up as "IT's Problem" is a very, very bad idea. It just takes one email fooling the right person to be a security problem.

PhishMe's philosophy is that at some point the technical protection will fail ... so you'd better ensure that your employees know what to look for. The best way to teach them what to look for is to let them actually experience safe emails using the same techniques that would be maliciously used against them.

Spear-phishing isn't an idle threat, it's a widely used attack method that has gotten data out of targets like the New York Times, Defense Department, Facebook, and Apple (http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2013/02/spear-phishing-security-advice/62304/). I'm sure that each of those companies has a very robust and capable IT Department armed with email scanning and sanitizing software. You just can't catch everything with technology.

A Keurig maching and a Jura Capresso machine are entirely different beasts. The Keurig is great for quick easy, individual drinks (e.g. one person can have coffee and the next tea). The Capresso is a serious coffee creation device that actually makes crema coffee right at home at the touch of a button. There's a reason a Keurig costs $150 and a Capresso costs $1000+.

I like and own 'em both though, they each have their place.

To all those who say "It will never happen," I respond with an ancient Chinese proverb: "Man who say it cannot be done should not interrupt man doing it."

Came here to say this. Commit confirmed is the best.

Also, all the poll options suck, consumer grade routers are crap.

Love my SRX100. :-P

I played GTA4 in character. I tried to do the right thing, drive by the rules, and not kill anyone. My Niko had already seen enough of war and bloodshed, but it was all he knew. He tried to make a change going to NYC, but did not have the will to break free of the dominating personalities surrounding him.

This style of play made some of the missions where you had to escape the police much more exciting.

No one was run over by tanks.

Also many forget that this wasn't just a few thousand idle students peacefully hanging out in the square. There were about a *million* disaffected students and unemployed workers camping out wherever they could, demanding free food from vendors, and harassing the general public. This went on for almost a month before the government took action.

Think about how long a million people would be allowed to camp outside the US capitol buildings, especially if they were harassing and looting.

And then, in all seriousness.

Deploy Juniper products where you can. Commit confirmed alone will help keep you sane.

As for learning how this stuff all glues together and works, that really depends on how you learn. I learn by trying things, and reading the manual, not from a classroom. YMMV, but I have never seen a class that did anything short of an awful job of explaining how networking works. I rely heavily on my peers and Google for ironing out issues that I cannot solve in my lab. Consider attending talks on subjects relevant to your needs, and anything that sounds even remotely interesting. Find someone more skilled than you who can explain shit in your native tongue and attempt to osmosis some talent bit by bit. Oh, and get yourself an O'Reilly Safari subscription, a nook/kindle/whatever, and start, as my friend Jeff says, consuming massive quantities of text.

And seriously, consider running, you are in for a long, dark road of evil.

Run, run as fast as you can, and don't look back.

Get ready to pay for it. You'll need at least an 3 Mb/sec for good streaming, so that's a 2xT1. Or about $400/month if you're in a well connected area. If you have Ethernet over Copper available (you probably don't) that would be the way to go.