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Re:GoDaddy employees told they were getting a holiday bonus ... by joecot on Thursday December 24, 2020 @02:51PM (#25530818)
If a company had a pen tester offer bribes to people, and those employees accept bribes, the pen test was indeed failed and those employees should be rightfully reprimanded. That's good security.

If a company had a pen tester send what appears to be a perfectly legitimate message to employees offering them a company bonus for responding (during a worldwide pandemic where everyone is short on money), and then says it was a pen test and they've failed, that company is awful and heartless. There might not be a legal case against them, but the company is still deserving of public scorn and outrage.

Re:GoDaddy employees told they were getting a holiday bonus ... by otterley on Thursday December 24, 2020 @02:56PM (#25530864)
Put yourself on the other side. If their employees are failing this test when they send such messages themselves, the company cannot feel comfortable that they are secure if a malicious actor sends such messages to their staff. It's a case of bad vs. worse. There are no winners here.
Re:GoDaddy employees told they were getting a holiday bonus ... by joecot on Thursday December 24, 2020 @03:01PM (#25530908)
It's a message from a valid internal email address. If a company's own email servers can't tell the difference between valid internal mail and external phishing, that's the company's problem, not the employees. If the company's email is hacked so that a hacker can send valid emails from a legitimate internal email address, that's the company's problem, not the employees. Nothing of value was learned by this test, besides the disdain GoDaddy has for their own employees.

If I put myself on the other side, I'd stop producing gross sexist ads, stop supporting overreaching internet legislation, and stop treating my employees like garbage.

Re:GoDaddy employees told they were getting a holiday bonus ... by otterley on Thursday December 24, 2020 @03:07PM (#25530961)
You're assuming, incorrectly, that phishing attacks can't come from the inside.
Re:GoDaddy employees told they were getting a holiday bonus ... by joecot on Thursday December 24, 2020 @03:16PM (#25531020)
If a hacker hacked the CEO's email address, and then used that address to email their secretary asking for information, and the secretary responded.... that is not a security failure on the secretary's part. That's the CEO's security issue, and the company's security issue. Therefore, it's a useless pen test, unless the purpose is to tell employees no emails from anyone can be trusted.

A phishing email can come from the inside. But seeing whether employees will respond to a valid internal email is not a test of employee security. And in this case, it was as heartless as it was useless.

Re:GoDaddy employees told they were getting a holiday bonus ... by otterley on Friday December 25, 2020 @01:03AM (#25534608)
Turns out the email wasn’t sent from the internal domain, but from gocladdy.com. There was some poor kerning in the screenshots.