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John Strand didn’t think it was a
great idea to allow his mom to
attempt to break in to a South
Dakota prison as part of a
“penetration” or “pen” test of their
security systems. But as Lily Hay
Newman reports at Wired, Rita
Strand, age 58, insisted. Armed only
with a fake badge and some
confidence, she posed as a health
inspector doing a surprise
inspection and managed to gain
access unaccompanied!-
throughout the facility where she
throughout the facility where she
planted “rubber duckies” (USB
sticks with code used to
compromise computer security
systems) on several computers,
including the one belonging to the
warden.
“She takes off, and Iľm thinking
in the back of my head that this
is a really bad idea,” Strand
says. “She has no pen testing
experience. No IT hacking
experience. I had said, Mom, if
this gets bad you need to pick
up the phone and call me
immediately.”
Pen testers usually try to get in
and out of a facility as quickly
as possible to avoid arousing
suspicion. But after 45 minutes
of waiting, there was no sign of
Rita.
“It gets to be about an hour,
and I’m panicking,” he says.
“And I’m thinking I should have
thought it through, because we
all went in the sanme car so I’m
out in the middle of nowhere at
a pie shop with no way to get to
her.”
O
Suddenly, the Black Hills
laptops began blinking with
activity. Rita had done it. The
USB drives she had planted
were creating so-called web
shells, which gave the team at
the café access to various
computers and servers inside
the prison. Strand remembers
one colleague yelling out: “Your
mom’s OK!”
In fact, Rita had encountered
no resistance at all inside the
prison. She told the guards at
the entrance that she was
conducting a surprise health
::)conducting a surprise health
inspection and they not only
allowed her in, but let her keep
her cell phone, with which she
recorded the entire operation.
In the facility’s kitchen, she
checked the temperatures in
refrigerators and freezers,
pretended to swab for bacteria
on the floors and counters,
looked for expired food, and
took photos.
But Rita also asked to see
employee work areas and
break areas, the prison’s
But Rita also asked to see
employee work areas and
break areas, the prison’s
network operations center, and
even the server room–all
allegedly to check for insect
infestations, humidity levels,
and mold. No one said no. She
was even allowed to roam the
prison alone, giving her ample
time to take photos and plant
her Rubber Duckies.
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