What is Social Engineering and How does it work?

bykeimor

225 followers

4 years ago

Hello WA Friends,

I cannot believe it is TGIF. Have a great weekend and here is my next series of posts on cybersecurity.

In my previous post, my goal is to educate everyone on the strategy and tactics of malicious hackers. Later in this series, I will discuss what is called defense-in-depth to sum up how to protect yourself and your devices from these attacks.

The purpose of this post is to discuss the most common tactic to steal personal information for financial gain. This is the easiest and so common that most people do realize they are being attacked until it is too late. You have to be diligent and recognize what is going on. It does take time and practice.

What is social engineering and how does it work?

Social engineering is a term used to describe the act of manipulating people into performing actions or divulging confidential information.

Social engineering is a type of confidence trick where the attacker gathers information about the victim to deceive them into revealing secrets such as bank information, credit cards, user credentials, etc. This can be done in person, over the phone, or online with email, chat messages, social media posts, and other digital mediums. The social engineer uses deception to get the victim into opening an attachment, downloading malware, or revealing their passwords.

The name "social engineering" was coined by psychologist Dr. David Krech in 1954 when he published his book "Social Psychology".

This video sums up how easy it is to perform social engineering…prepared to be shocked!

What is phishing, spear phishing, whaling?

Phishing is a form of social engineering that uses electronic communications to impersonate a trustworthy entity in an attempt to scam users. Spear phishing is the more targeted version of phishing, where the attacker sends emails or messages to specific individuals. Whaling or whaling attacks are more focused on executive team members, but the goal is the same: steal sensitive data for financial gain.

An attack on an employee’s account can be devastating to the company in many ways. It can lead to data breaches, financial loss, and much more.

How to Protect Yourself from Social Engineering Attacks & Avoid Data Breaches?

The best way to protect yourself from social engineering attacks is by having a good security awareness program in place. This will help your employees understand how these attacks work and what they need to do to avoid being tricked by them. You should also have a written policy for how your employees should handle emails that are suspicious or appear to be from someone they don't know well, so they can tell the difference between phishing emails and legitimate ones.

Conclusion

Social engineering is the most common strategy being used to attack users from their personal information so they can use it for financial gain. If something looks fishy it probably is. My next post on this subject will talk about the process a hacker uses to break into systems how to prevent those types of attacks.

Cheers,
Keith