“Telephone pretexting is an old spy trick , where you pretend to be someone your not in order to fraudulently gather information about your target”, said one old retired Russian spy in Moscow.
“Telephone pretexting is an old spy trick , where you pretend to be someone your not in order to fraudulently gather information about your target….”, quote from one old retired Russian spy in Moscow.
In India a Pakistani spy for the ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) was arrested on espionage charges, according to authorities he would “call Army installations around India pretending to be a high ranking army officer that needed information.”
This is a type of telephone “pretexting.”
Pretexting is a form of social engineering technique in which an individual “lies to obtain privileged data. A pretext is a false motive.” Said another way pretexting is basically when you pretend to be someone else.
Case studies:
In one particular case , back in 2009 a Hamas website issued an alert regarding reports that Israeli spies were “calling people under false pretenses” and asking for seemingly meaningless or innocuous information.
In another case Hamas issued a warning regarding “phone calls from Israeli intelligence agents pretending to be working for the Palestinian Authority Phone company.”
According to that warning “the caller presents the name and ID number of the owner of the telephone line and asks the owner to verify that the details are accurate.”
“Then they begin”, the website warned “to ask many questions, about the name of people in the family, inquiries about who lives in the house and where it is located…etc.”
The Hamas report instructed readers to “immediately hang up the phone when and if they receive such calls.”
In fact several months ago a Hamas representative in Gaza warned residents about the evident dangers of Facebook social networking site.
He said: “The main danger here was activity by the “Israeli Mossad”, which uses such websites to methodically collect intelligence on residents, blackmail them and/or cause them to “collaborate with the enemy.”
For your information Hamas does the same thing by the way.
Of course using the telephone to gather information is an excellent way to collect intelligence information – it always has been, since before the days of the cold war.
It’s just strange when you hear about this being a problem someplace besides the United States of America where foreign intelligence services have made pretexting a virtual art form.
The Russian Foreign Intelligence Services (SVR) for example, uses this method extensively to great effect, calling such places as the White House Press room, Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon.
Likewise we sometimes use pretexting to gather information from them.
Recently I called SVR HQ in Moscow with my friend Ivan and asked to be connected with Director Fradkov office where we were able to verify the name of the person who answered the phone in less than 20 seconds.
Using that information we were able to verify residency information about that individual in Moscow….
On another occasion we pretended to be reporters with Pravda.ru and asked to be put through to the press office and talked with the assistant there who verified a number of facts for me, before even asking me who I was.
Later we used that person’s name to connect to another directorates within the SVR…all by phone, to solicit more “tid bits” of information – we would use those “tid bits” to “go fishing” as we called it.
Telephone pretexting today remains a valuable tool in terms of spy craft, especially for getting specific bits or bytes of information, you might not be able to any other way.
In fact you would be surprised at what all you can find out just by talking to random people on the phone.
If you have any doubt about this whatsoever just ask your teenage daughter sometime. She tell you the same thing.