Essay On Social Engineering

1549 Words4 Pages

SOCIAL ENGINEERING
1. Introduction. Social engineering is the art of human hacking. It is the art and science of getting people to comply with your wishes. It includes the ways and means to fool and manipulate people to give out confidential information or to mould the human minds to take particular decisions. The information can vary from bank information, social media passwords to the professional secrets. At its core it is manipulating a person into knowingly or unknowingly giving up information; essentially 'hacking' into a person to steal valuable information. It is a way for criminals to gain access to information systems. The purpose of social engineering is usually to secretly install spyware, other malicious software or to trick persons …show more content…

Biggest Attacks
o. Why do People Fall for Social Engineering Techniques
p. Precautions
q. Bibliography
4. Social Engineers. Social engineers or criminals are individuals who take advantage of human behaviour to pull off a scam and aren't worried about a badge system. They will just walk right in and confidently ask someone to help them get inside. 'Social Engineering' is a threat, often overlooked but regularly exploited; to take advantage of what has long been considered the 'weakest link' in the security chain of an organization, the 'human factor'. Social engineers draw their motivation from following elements:-
a. Financial Gain. For example, he may believe he deserves more money than he earns or maybe there is a need to satisfy an out–of-control gambling habit.
b. Self-interest. For example, want to access and/or modify information that is associated with a family member, colleague or even a neighbour.
c. Revenge. For example, target a friend, colleague, organization or even a total stranger to satisfy the emotional desire for vengeance.
d. External Pressure. For example, receiving pressure from friends, family or organized crime syndicates for reasons such as financial gain, self-interest and/or …show more content…

Trust Manipulation. The social engineering is constantly on the rise as it is much easier to fool a person to give out his password rather than using complicated software’s to try and crack the passwords. The social engineering is all about exploiting human natural inclination to trust the people. Human being is very emotional and has natural tendency to trust others. People are generally helpful, especially to someone who is nice, knowledgeable or insistent.Security has now evolved all around a human’s judgment about who to trust and what to trust. It’s about one’s mastering the following skills:-
a. Knowing who and what to trust.
b. Knowing when and when not to believe one’s words.
c. Ensuring that the person you are communicating is the same you intend to communicate with.
d. Ensuring the website is legitimate and it’s safe to give information on it.
e. Ensuring that the person on the other side of the phone is the person you intend talking to.
f. Knowing whether it’s safe to give out particular personal

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