Stopping a social-engineering software request
A convincing approach from someone posing as a journalist nearly got unauthorised software installed on a client's network - a verification check stopped it cold.
An employee was contacted by someone posing as a journalist and asked to install a program to enable an interview or feature. The software claimed certification from a well-known consumer platform, and the request was passed to IT for approval so work could continue without delay.
PurpleBox declined to approve the installation until it had been properly verified, despite the inconvenience to the employee. The certification claim didn't hold up, the software had only been released a few months earlier, and further research turned up reports of the same journalist pretext being used to target other companies. The request was refused, and PurpleBox used the incident to reinforce the client's software approval process - every new application now goes through IT before it reaches production use, whoever is asking for it.
The unauthorised software was never installed, and the client now has a clear, consistently applied process for approving new applications. To make future requests easier to track and act on than an ad-hoc WhatsApp or email message, PurpleBox also introduced a lightweight internal ticketing system so every request has a clear owner and a record.
Expertise used
- Application & publisher verification
- Social-engineering awareness
- Software approval process design
- Internal ticketing system rollout