What is social engineering?
The term "social engineering" refers to a multitude of actions undertaken by cyber criminals that relate to human interaction. While some cyber crime is committed through penetrating a network directly and exfiltrating data, other methods are just as effective. The most popular methods of social engineering among cyber criminals are phishing, baiting or quid pro quo attacks.
How do social engineering attacks work?
A misconception about social engineering attacks is that only gullible people fall for them, this is not the case. In their simplest form, social engineering attacks are centred around you, the individual. The cyber criminals' main objective is to build your trust and reinforce their legitimacy. Some cyber criminals will establish direct contact with their target, often through email but sometimes over the phone. The objective of the cyber criminal is to obtain sensitive data such as passwords or credit card details.
Although social engineering attacks are harder to predict than other kinds of malicious activities, that doesn’t mean there’s nothing you can do about them…
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