At its core, social engineering is not a cyber attack. Instead, social engineering is all about the psychology of persuasion: It targets the mind like your old school grifter or con man. The aim is to gain the trust of targets, so they lower their guard, and then encourage them into taking unsafe actions such as divulging personal information or clicking on web links or opening attachments that may be malicious.
In a typical social engineering attack, a cybercriminal will communicate with the intended victim by saying they are from a trusted organization. In some cases, they will even impersonate a person the victim knows.
Social Engineering ( Security ) ( )
One of the greatest dangers of social engineering is that the attacks don't have to work against everyone: A single successfully fooled victim can provide enough information to trigger an attack that can affect an entire organization.
Over time, social engineering attacks have grown increasingly sophisticated. Not only do fake websites or emails look realistic enough to fool victims into revealing data that can be used for identity theft, social engineering has also become one of the most common ways for attackers to breach an organization's initial defenses in order to cause further disruption and harm.
Consistent training tailored for your organization is highly recommended. This should include demonstrations of the ways in which attackers might attempt to socially engineer your employees. For example, simulate a scenario where an attacker poses as a bank employee who asks the target to verify their account information. Another scenario could be a senior manager (whose email address has been spoofed or copied) asks the target to send a payment to a certain account.
Organizations should also establish a clear set of security policies to help employees make the best decisions when it comes to social engineering attempts. Examples of useful procedures to include are:
Phishing scams are the most common type of social engineering attack. They typically take the form of an email that looks as if it is from a legitimate source. Sometimes attackers will attempt to coerce the victim into giving away credit card information or other personal data. At other times, phishing emails are sent to obtain employee login information or other details for use in an advanced attack against their company. Cybercrime attacks such as advanced persistent threats (APTs) and ransomware often start with phishing attempts.
Watering hole attacks are a very targeted type of social engineering. An attacker will set a trap by compromising a website that is likely to be visited by a particular group of people, rather than targeting that group directly. An example is industry websites that are frequently visited by employees of a certain sector, such as energy or a public service. The perpetrators behind a watering hole attack will compromise the website and aim to catch out an individual from that target group. They are likely to carry out further attacks once that individual's data or device has been compromised.
When talking about cybersecurity, we also need to talk about the physical aspects of protecting data and assets. Certain people in your organization--such as help desk staff, receptionists, and frequent travelers--are more at risk from physical social engineering attacks, which happen in person.
Your organization should have effective physical security controls such as visitor logs, escort requirements, and background checks. Employees in positions at higher risk for social-engineering attacks may benefit from specialized training from physical social engineering attacks.
Social engineering is the term used for a broad range of malicious activities accomplished through human interactions. It uses psychological manipulation to trick users into making security mistakes or giving away sensitive information.
What makes social engineering especially dangerous is that it relies on human error, rather than vulnerabilities in software and operating systems. Mistakes made by legitimate users are much less predictable, making them harder to identify and thwart than a malware-based intrusion.
Social engineering attacks come in many different forms and can be performed anywhere where human interaction is involved. The following are the five most common forms of digital social engineering assaults.
All sorts of pertinent information and records is gathered using this scam, such as social security numbers, personal addresses and phone numbers, phone records, staff vacation dates, bank records and even security information related to a physical plant.
As one of the most popular social engineering attack types, phishing scams are email and text message campaigns aimed at creating a sense of urgency, curiosity or fear in victims. It then prods them into revealing sensitive information, clicking on links to malicious websites, or opening attachments that contain malware.
Social engineers manipulate human feelings, such as curiosity or fear, to carry out schemes and draw victims into their traps. Therefore, be wary whenever you feel alarmed by an email, attracted to an offer displayed on a website, or when you come across stray digital media lying about. Being alert can help you protect yourself against most social engineering attacks taking place in the digital realm.
Social engineering is an attack vector that relies heavily on human interaction and often involves manipulating people into breaking normal security procedures and best practices to gain unauthorized access to systems, networks or physical locations or for financial gain.
Threat actors use social engineering techniques to conceal their true identities and motives, presenting themselves as trusted individuals or information sources. The objective is to influence, manipulate or trick users into releasing sensitive information or access within an organization. Many social engineering exploits rely on people's willingness to be helpful or fear of punishment. For example, the attacker might pretend to be a co-worker who has some kind of urgent problem that requires access to additional network resources.
Social engineering is a popular tactic among attackers because it is often easier to exploit people than it is to find a network or software vulnerability. Hackers will often use social engineering tactics as a first step in a larger campaign to infiltrate a system or network and steal sensitive data or disperse malware.
The first step in most social engineering attacks is for the attacker to perform research and reconnaissance on the target. If the target is an enterprise, for instance, the hacker may gather intelligence on the organizational structure, internal operations, common lingo used within the industry and possible business partners, among other information.
One common tactic of social engineers is to focus on the behaviors and patterns of employees who have low-level but initial access, such as a security guard or receptionist; attackers can scan social media profiles for personal information and study their behavior online and in person.
Perhaps the most famous example of a social engineering attack comes from the legendary Trojan War in which the Greeks were able to sneak into the city of Troy and win the war by hiding inside a giant wooden horse that was presented to the Trojan army as a symbol of peace.
In more modern times, Frank Abagnale is considered one of the foremost experts in social engineering techniques. In the 1960s, he used various tactics to impersonate at least eight people, including an airline pilot, a doctor and a lawyer. Abagnale was also a check forger during this time. After his incarceration, he became a security consultant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and started his own financial fraud consultancy. His experiences as a young con man were made famous in his best-selling book Catch Me If You Can and the movie adaptation from Oscar-winning director Steven Spielberg.
To obtain the source code for the device, Mitnick called Motorola and was connected to the department working on it. He then convinced a Motorola employee that he was a colleague and persuaded that worker to send him the source code. Mitnick was ultimately arrested and served five years for hacking. Today, he is a multimillionaire and the author of a number of books on hacking and security. A sought-after speaker, Mitnick also runs cybersecurity company Mitnick Security.
A more recent example of a successful social engineering attack was the 2011 data breach of security company RSA. An attacker sent two different phishing emails over two days to small groups of RSA employees. The emails had the subject line "2011 Recruitment Plan" and contained an Excel file attachment. The spreadsheet contained malicious code that, once the file was opened, installed a backdoor through an Adobe Flash vulnerability. While it was never made clear exactly what information was stolen, if any, RSA's SecurID two-factor authentication (2FA) system was compromised, and the company spent approximately $66 million recovering from the attack.
In 2015, cybercriminals gained access to the personal AOL email account of John Brennan, then the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. One of the hackers explained to media outlets how he used social engineering techniques to pose as a Verizon technician and request information about Brennan's account with Verizon. Once the hackers obtained Brennan's Verizon account details, they contacted AOL and used the information to correctly answer security questions for Brennan's email account.
According to Digital Guardian, "Social engineering attacks typically involve some form of psychological manipulation, fooling otherwise unsuspecting users or employees into handing over confidential or sensitive data. Commonly, social engineering involves email or other communication that invokes urgency, fear, or similar emotions in the victim, leading the victim to promptly reveal sensitive information, click a malicious link, or open a malicious file." 2ff7e9595c
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