Social Engineering
Abdulelah Almubarak
March 24, 17
IASC-1100
In this paper the discussion goes around the main definition of social engineering and part of the history of social engineering. Some places where social engineering could be applied and who gets benefits out of it. These days we use social engineering a little bit differently where social engineering can help many companies protect themselves from hackers.
Social engineering is a mix of science, psychology and art(1). Social engineering is any act that influences a person to take an action that may or may not be in their best interest. Criminals use social engineering tactics because it’s easier to exploit our natural tendency to trust than they hack
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N 1935 Lustig was captured after masterminding a counterfeit banknote operation so vast that it threatened to shake confidence in the American economy where a judge in New York sentenced him to 20 years on Alcatraz(1B).
Nowadays we use social engineering for many proposes including computer policies and many other situations. As technology advances everyday new vulnerabilities arises all the time. In computer word we have many vulnerabilities where social engineering can be applied. Take baiting for instance, an attacker leaves a malware on a device, such as USB flash drive in a place he or she knows that it will be found. When found and picked up the device the finder would load it into their computer, accidently installing the malware. Furthermore, Baiting is one of many ways social engineering used. Phishing on the other hand is another way social engineering is used. Where a hacker sends a fraudulent email to pose as a legitimate email from a trusted source. When the receiver opens the email the hacker starts to trick the recipient in sharing personal or financial information or by asking the recipient to click on link that installs malware. Also Pretexting is another type of social engineering where someone lies to another person to gain access to their private data. When you get a call from someone who is pretending to be a bank worker and ask for sensitive information personal or financial data in order to confirm
Social engineering has caused many problems for different organizations. Because of social engineering many businesses have to take extra steps to protect themselves and their information from being hacked. According to Bidgoli, Social Engineering is a type of attack that takes over the power of human aspects in order to trick the public into declaring confidential information(MIS 7, 2017). This hacking technique has obtained the attention of numerous organizations, businesses, and governments worldwide.
This study conducted a large scale phishing experiment in a university with more than 10,000 subjects. The initial phishing attack involved spoofed email that redirects a user to a website to change their password, both males and females in the experiment were equally deceived. The second part of the attack used a survey to harvest personal information, this found that 61% of the victims were males compared to only 39%
A Social engineering attack is a technique used by the hacker to trick people so they give up confidential information. The most important information the criminals are seeking are peoples’ passwords, bank information, social security number and much more. Reading through the website http://www.social-engineer.org/, I can tell that no one is safe from social engineering attack. One example that makes me think that way is the case of Maario Coleman and Angela Russell. These two guys were able to collect students’ information on the graduation ceremonies and create target lists. The pair then used online databases to find matching social security numbers and birthdates before applying for loans in the students’ names. Social engineering attack
The data breaches at Target, Home Depot are reminders to CIOs of how deadly social engineering can be. CIO’s and CSO’s realize the dangers of security problems on a massive scale. These are some deliberate security breaches that happen when an employee shares a password or loses a mobile device. An employee might access a website at work that loads malware onto his PC, which then spreads throughout the corporate network. In other cases, security breaches occur when a disgruntled employee leaves the company and takes with him valuable intellectual property that belongs to the company.
Social engineering is a type of psychological attack where an attacker misleads you into doing something they want you to do. Social engineering is used every day by everyday people in everyday situations. A child trying to get her way in the candy aisle or an employee looking for a raise is using social engineering. Unfortunately, it is also present when criminals, con men, and the like trick people into giving away information that makes them vulnerable to crimes. Like any tool, social engineering is not good or evil, but simply a tool that has many different uses. Social engineering is lying to people to get information. Social engineering is being a good actor. Social engineering is knowing how to get stuff for free. Combining all these
Social Engineering has become a career for modern day cyber criminals. Thieves are waiting to prey on the vulnerable, and naïve. The situations, as devastating as they are to the victims, are very real. In some cases, unfortunately, the cybercrimes are life-altering and irreparable. This paper will highlight four real-life cases where social engineering techniques were used to obtain personal and corporate information.
Many wonder what is a social engineer and want to know what is that they do and why do they do it. Social engineer is the art of manipulating people so that they give the social engineer important information. A social engineer could be considered people who know you personally or someone who do not know you at all. If it’s a person you have not met, they would manipulate you to make it seems as they are trusted individual. Social engineering sometimes look for the flaws within a company or an individual and use that for their gain. In my PowerPoint I stated that social engineer are basically the “scientific” term for a hacker. They “phish” the brain to retrieve what is needed and moved to the next vulnerable person or company.
Cookies are also used as a technique of social engineering and it involves installing software in an individual’s PC remotely. The victim is then tricked by messages that constantly pop up in his computer’s window and which inform him he has won a particular prize (Mann, 2012). In order to trick the user, he is directed click a particular link to claim his prize. If he accepts and does so, his emails and passwords are stolen and used to his access his/her personal and confidential
To answer that question we must understand what constitutes a social engineering attack. In the article Social Engineering, Aaron Korora, refers to social engineering as human hacking and defines it as the “art and technique of convincing people to release confidential information or engage in a course they may not necessarily choose for themselves” (Korora, 2013). I would add to this definition by stating a social engineering attack can be made by the end user knowingly and
Social engineering is a way of manipulating people so that they can provide their personal information to the cyber criminals. These criminals try to trick the individuals to try to get their passwords and bank information or gain access over to that individual’s computer. Criminals think that it is easier to fool someone to give them their password then try to hack their password. Basically they target those people who don’t have any idea that their information can be misused by these criminals so they just give all of their information. These criminals gain trust of those people before they get those people’s information for their own benefit. Social engineering is one of the biggest problem that people should be more aware of so they can
Ans: Social engineering is the art of gaining access to buildings, systems or data by exploiting human psychology, rather than by breaking in or using hacking techniques. The types of information these criminals are seeking can vary, but when individuals are targeted the criminals are usually trying to trick you into giving them your passwords or bank information, or access your computer to secretly install malicious software–that will give them access to your passwords and bank information as well as giving them control over your computer.
The criminals that are involved in social engineering are pursuing information by tricking you into giving out your passwords or bank data. They also access your computer to corruptly install malicious software that will give them access to your personal information. Common social engineering attacks are emails from a friend, baiting situations like offering new music, phishing attempts like test messages, and etc. Many ways to elude these type of attacks like investigating the matter, delete any invitation for financial information, or reject requests for help or proposals of
The expression “Social Engineering” is used to point out the ability of an individual to use some of the characteristics of the human nature in order to accomplish their personal goals. Social engineering can be used to control a large number of individuals using a variety of means such as ruling, media etc.
In today's world there is an abundance of information. When you think of hackers you normally think of individuals who use technology to gain access to information that is not otherwise available. In a lot of cases this can be true but there are other ways to gain access to information that requires little technical knowledge. A lot of this information is available freely without restrictions. Social engineering takes advantage of this fact to acquire additional information by manipulating perceptions of those disclosing the needed information.
Social engineering has been defined as “Any act that influences a person to take an action that may or may not be in their best interest.” ("Social Engineering," n.d.). Finding a system security vulnerability in a business can mitigate the effects of a social engineering attack. Using a person’s natural reaction to please people against them can be very detrimental to a business. Social engineering takes many forms and effects businesses in many ways. Businesses tend to focus their security on more their computer system not so much on the human factor weakness. Since businesses are not usually focused on social engineering, it ends up costing businesses millions of dollars (“Businesses Beware,” 2015). There are a great deal of different attacks that are used to effect businesses, but social engineering is the most successful and has the most detrimental effect. Social engineering effects businesses all over the world in a lot of different ways. Most businesses effected by social engineering do everything they can to keep the incident from reaching the public. Business don’t want the public to know they are vulnerable to social engineering to maintain good public standing. A good example of a business effected by social engineering, that is well known by the public, is Craigslist. Craigslist is an online trading website that has been a victim of social engineering. The public is well aware of posters on Craigslist using fake names, locations, and stories to try and get users