Social Engineering Attacks

Social Engineers take advantage of humans to gain private information. Once they obtain the information they want they usually break into servers and networks and steal data ( MIS7, 2017). In order to obtain private information, they use many different platforms such as google maps, different websites, and they even use blogs. More so, they can obtain even more sensitive and private information using different techniques like dumpster diving, shoulder surfing, phishing, and pretexting.

According to TechTarget.com, the definition of spear phishing is an email spoofing attack that targets a specific organization or individual, seeking unauthorized access to sensitive information. Unless a student, faculty member, staff, or alumni are knowledgeable with IT procedures or programs, they will not know when they have become a target of a phishing attack. Recently, several Dartmouth students received emails that were claiming to be from the President of the University, however the messages were found to be malware, which is designed to steal information (“Don’t Take the Bait,” 2017).

Another threat is Phishing, it is the fraudulent practice of sending emails pretending to be from reputable companies in order to lure individuals to reveal personal information, such as passwords and credit card numbers.

Dhamija, R., Tygar, J. D., & Hearst, M. (2006, April). Why phishing works. InProceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human Factors in computing systems (pp. 581-590). ACM.

This is called phishing when interne users are deceived into divulging their personal information. Malware is when software is downloaded to your computer which collects and transmits personal information. Hacking is illegally accessing computer systems remotely United Nations Office Drugs and Crime). The internet allows people steal and transfer information without meeting or communicating with the person they steal it from. The United States is the leading source of credit card numbers of underground markets. It is estimated that internet identity theft is 1 billion dollars a year.

This paper analyzes the social engineering technology and the social engineering tools that are used to test the human element with regard to its capabilities and limitations in the areas of confidentiality, integrity, and availability. The analysis covers Social engineering Toolkits usefulness, cost, and implementation complexity and how its effectiveness can be enhanced.

A Social engineering attack is a technique used by the hacker to trick people so they give up confidential information. The most important information the criminals are seeking are peoples’ passwords, bank information, social security number and much more. Reading through the website http://www.social-engineer.org/, I can tell that no one is safe from social engineering attack. One example that makes me think that way is the case of Maario Coleman and Angela Russell. These two guys were able to collect students’ information on the graduation ceremonies and create target lists. The pair then used online databases to find matching social security numbers and birthdates before applying for loans in the students’ names. Social engineering attack

Recently, the company has been the subject of a data breach in which confidential files in the network have been accessed by an unknown party. Upon investigation we have found that a supervisor that handles customer complaints received an e-mail from what appeared to have been a customer with a complaint regarding an error on the website. Upon investigation he found no such error, but did find that the return address did not exist. It is very likely the company has become the victim of one or more social engineers seeking to exfiltrate data from the company. It is believed that that source of the attack was a spear phishing campaign via the e-mail sent to the supervisor that oversees customer complaints. While supervisor e-mails are not normally

I agree with Dr. Thomas Plante on social engineering which is an effective way of changing people's behavior (Plante, 2012). I believe social engineering could be a useful tool to achieve public good. For example, banning public smoking has resulted in better cleaner air for all and reducing high risk to lung cancer and many other chronic diseases. We can not control each individual to avoid smoking. However, by making laws that restricted smokers in the use of public space, we can improve overall social conditions.

Many wonder what is a social engineer and want to know what is that they do and why do they do it. Social engineer is the art of manipulating people so that they give the social engineer important information. A social engineer could be considered people who know you personally or someone who do not know you at all. If it’s a person you have not met, they would manipulate you to make it seems as they are trusted individual. Social engineering sometimes look for the flaws within a company or an individual and use that for their gain. In my PowerPoint I stated that social engineer are basically the “scientific” term for a hacker. They “phish” the brain to retrieve what is needed and moved to the next vulnerable person or company.

There are twelve major ways technology threatens your online policy today. The first of these threats is phishing. According to Riva Richmond, phishing is a ploy to gain personal information that will help people to steal your identity. Hackers will send you fake e-mails that

To answer that question we must understand what constitutes a social engineering attack. In the article Social Engineering, Aaron Korora, refers to social engineering as human hacking and defines it as the “art and technique of convincing people to release confidential information or engage in a course they may not necessarily choose for themselves” (Korora, 2013). I would add to this definition by stating a social engineering attack can be made by the end user knowingly and

Social engineering is a way of manipulating people so that they can provide their personal information to the cyber criminals. These criminals try to trick the individuals to try to get their passwords and bank information or gain access over to that individual’s computer. Criminals think that it is easier to fool someone to give them their password then try to hack their password. Basically they target those people who don’t have any idea that their information can be misused by these criminals so they just give all of their information. These criminals gain trust of those people before they get those people’s information for their own benefit. Social engineering is one of the biggest problem that people should be more aware of so they can

The criminals that are involved in social engineering are pursuing information by tricking you into giving out your passwords or bank data. They also access your computer to corruptly install malicious software that will give them access to your personal information. Common social engineering attacks are emails from a friend, baiting situations like offering new music, phishing attempts like test messages, and etc. Many ways to elude these type of attacks like investigating the matter, delete any invitation for financial information, or reject requests for help or proposals of

Social networking is a way for people to connect and share information with each other online.