The art of manipulating people into divulging confidential information or performing actions that compromise security.
Social Engineering
It uses psychological manipulation to trick users into making security mistakes or giving away sensitive information.
Social Engineering
A cybercrime in which a target or targets are contacted by email, telephone or text message by someone posing as a legitimate institutions to lure individuals into providing sensitive data such as personally identifiable information, banking and credit card details, and passwords.
Phishing
A fake email from “your bank” asking you to reset your password via a malicious link.
Phishing
A technique that manipulated victims into divulging information. A pretext is a made-up scenario developed by threat actors for the purpose of stealing a victim’s personal data.
Pretexting
A scammer posing as IT support asks for your login details to “fix an issue”.
Pretexting
A type of phishing attack that also leverages personal communication to gain access to a user’s device or personal information.
Whaling
Baiting scams can be in the form of tempting ads or online promotions, such as free game or movie downloads, music streaming or phone upgrades.
Whaling
A cyberattack that originate offline. In this attack, a thief persuades a courier to pick up or drop off a package in the wrong location, deliver an incorrect package or deliver a package to the wrong recipient.
Diversion Theft
This attack type often involves spoofing, which is a technique used by cybercriminals to disguise themselves as a known or trusted source.
Diversion Theft
A social engineering tactic where the attacker poses as a trustworthy executive who is authorized to deal with financial matters within the organization.
Business Email Compromise
A scammer spoofs an executive’s email to impersonate them and fraudulently instruct subordinated to transfer funds or change banking details.
Business Email Compromise
A social engineering attack conducted specifically through SMS messages. In this attack, scammers attempt to lure the user into clicking on a link which directs them to a malicious site. Once on the site, the victim is then prompted to download malicious software and content.
Smishing/SMS-Phishing
A scammer spoofs an executive’s email to impersonate them and fraudulently instruct subordinates to transfer funds or change banking details.
Smishing/SMS-Phishing
This attack involves the attacker requesting sensitive information from the victim in exchange for a desirable service.
Quid Pro Quo
For example, an attacker may pose as an IT support technician, call a user to address a common issue like slow network speeds, and trick them into sharing login credentials, which are then used to access sensitive data or sold on the dark web.
Quid Pro Quo
A social engineering technique that specifically targets individuals looking for love on online dating websites or social media. The criminal befriends the victim by creating a fictional persona and setting up a fake online profile.
Honeytrap
also known as piggybacking, is a physical breach whereby an attacker gains access to a physical facility by asking the person entering ahead of them to hold the door or grant them access.
Tailgating
can also include allowing an unauthorized person to borrow an employee’s laptop or other device so that the user can install malware.
Tailgating
A Psychological Principles behind the social environment
No social engineering attacks would be possible if the attackers were not able to first build trust with their targets.
1 Programming the Trust Algorithm
A Psychological Principles behind the social environment
People tend to assign immediate trust to authoritative figures and not doubt their intention. Social engineers will impersonate company executives, lawyers or technicians. The attackers have already investigated which authoritative figures are suitable for each of their victims.
2 Persons or Organizations with Authority
A Psychological Principles behind the social environment
People are more willing to do something or trust a situation or interpersonal dynamic when they observe other people doing it first. They also put a lot of weight into other people’s endorsements.
3 Social Proof
A Psychological Principles behind the social environment
People associate consistent behaviours with people that are reliable, intelligent, trustworthy, and other highly praised traits. Due to this social norm, people tend to care a lot about appearing consistent.
4 Consistency
A Psychological Principles behind the social environment
When people are similar to us, we tend to perceive them as belonging to “our tribe”. Psychological studies have shown that when people appear to be or think like we do, we automatically assign some other psychological characteristics to them.
5 Liking
