Social Engineering has become a career for modern day cyber criminals. Thieves are waiting to prey on the vulnerable, and naïve. The situations, as devastating as they are to the victims, are very real. In some cases, unfortunately, the cybercrimes are life-altering and irreparable. This paper will highlight four real-life cases where social engineering techniques were used to obtain personal and corporate information.
Electronic Communication Middle School instructor Koby used an online auction site to sell his car. (US Norton, 2016) Within a few days, the car sold and Koby removed the listing after receiving the funds. Koby logged back onto his account at a later date, and found that the same car was back up for sale with new contact
…show more content…
Quid Pro Quo is the acceptance of a gift in exchange for information of some sort. (Dara Security, 2015) Kimberly Ellerth was a salesperson for a reputable department store. During her 15 months of employment, the manager solicited sexual favors in exchange for promotions. He also threatened to deny job benefits for refusal. Due to sexual harassment policy that was not being reinforced, Ms. Ellerth filed a case against the company. (Legal Information Institute, n.d.) The last real-life case is an example of tailgating. Colin Greenless, cybercriminal that was not an employee of the company being victimized, followed authorized employees into restricted areas. (Trip Wire, 2012) Greenless impersonated a delivery driver, struck up a conversation with actual employees, and walked right into the buildings with them. Greenless, playing the role of an employee, worked out of a 3rd floor meeting room for several days while using FTSE listed financial firms sensitive data. (Trip Wire, 2012) The following is an example of a phishing email:
Hello My Dear,
It is my pleasure to inform you that a cheque have been approved in your favor. The cheque value is $1.7M USD. Simply contact jerr.band.stuart with the information below so that he can sent the cheque to you immediately.
A)Full name B)Address C)Country D)City E)Age F)Cell phone number G)ID Card
Regards, Kenneth
Social engineering has caused many problems for different organizations. Because of social engineering many businesses have to take extra steps to protect themselves and their information from being hacked. According to Bidgoli, Social Engineering is a type of attack that takes over the power of human aspects in order to trick the public into declaring confidential information(MIS 7, 2017). This hacking technique has obtained the attention of numerous organizations, businesses, and governments worldwide.
new advances in the electronic technologies during the past decades have administered a new wealth of criminal activity. Software like Computer viruses, malware, software privacy, spam and etc. Technologically savvy artist replicate websites, so when a person's online activities occurs in a virtual world it can be compromised.Many times Cyber intrusions rely on human interaction and it often involves tricking people into breaking security procedures.
Courts and employers generally use the same definition of “quid pro quo”, a form of sexual
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
For Instance, Quid pro quo harassment is when a supervisor asks for sexual favors, promising the employee a raise, or telling them that if they don’t agree to the sexual favors, they have a chance to get terminated. Moreover, Hostile environment, doesn’t promise the employee anything, but just makes the employee uncomfortable, and make his working environment hostile.
Over the last few years the amount of security breaches that have been reported have had one factor that has been prevalent in majority of the attacks. That factor is the employee’s and how they are manipulated into giving the intruder/hacker exactly what they needed without realizing it. The use of social engineering in data breaches and fraud has been steadily increasing over the years. Confidentiality, integrity, and availability the three components of the CIA triad in network security can all be compromised by the risk of social engineering.
Social engineering refers to the techniques that are used by the criminals to manipulate people to give out their confidential information such as user names, passwords and bank accountants without being aware (Hadnagy, 2011). This technique is used by the criminals over the internet to trick people to disclose their confidential information rather than hacking the software installed on their PC. Social engineering takes different forms and it is perpetrated by the individuals who wants to take advantage of others after getting confidential information that allows them to access their accounts such as email or databases that contain protected information. For instance, a criminal who want to access another person’s email account may send
Over the past few years the internet has become a tempting place for criminals to acquire identifying information, such as passwords and banking data. In criminal’s haste to explore the exciting features of the internet, many people respond to “spam” unsolicited emails that promise them benefits, but request identifying information, without recognizing that in many situations, the requester has no intention of keeping their promise. In some situations, criminals reportedly have exploited computer technology to acquire large amounts of personal information. With enough identifying data about an individual, a criminal can take over that individual’s identity to conduct a wide range of crimes: for example, false applications for loans, credit cards, fraudulent withdrawals from bank accounts, acquiring other goods, or privileges which the criminal might deny if they were to use their real name. If the criminal takes steps to ensure that bills for the falsely acquired credit cards, or bank statements showing the unauthorized withdrawals are sent to another address other than the victims, the victim may not become aware of what’s happening until the criminal has already inflicted substantial damage on the victim’s assets, credit and reputation (Identity Theft).
This interest in aesthetics did not stop him from caring about the sound either, although his playing does not really seem to be that technical. Smith is, indeed, also known for his various modifications on guitars, the most famous being the Top 20 pick-up he added to his Jazzmaster to keep part of the Top 20 sound.
In a world increasingly dependent on cyberspace, criminals are learning to keep up with these advances and how to use it to their advantage. An example of this is found in the Target data breach, where thousands of customers’ personal details were leaked. This essay will analyze this crime making use of Routine Activity and the Person-Situation Interaction theories to explain the motive behind this type of criminal behavior. Strategies will also be suggested to avoid a recurrence of such a crime.
"The Art of Deception" is a great read if you are interested in Social Engineering, I also recommend a book called "Social Engineering: The Art of Human Hacking", by Christopher Hadnagy and Paul Wilson. This book breaks down the various steps you would take in order to perform a successful Social Engineering attack. It also goes into some real world examples of how people use these types of tactics in various professions, especially in sales.
But another meaning of social engineering that relates more to information security than political sciences is the act of psychologically directing humans in such a way to make them reveal sensitive information or perform some tasks. So this report aims at answering question with regards to the identity of a typical social engineer, what the techniques used by social engineers are, what makes a real protected system
PRE-TEXTING: This is one of the most popular and a valued technique a social engineer can use since it needs lots of research about the victim before the actual attack is carried out. In a typical pretext the con artist plans out a design that tend to influence a destined victim for performing certain actions that compromise the information confidentiality. An example of a highly publicized pretext attack is quoted from Wikipedia as [sw2] “On September 5, 2006, Newsweek revealed that Hewlett-Packard 's general counsel, at the behest of HP chairwoman Patricia Dunn, had contracted a team of independent security experts to investigate board members and several journalists
With the beginning of internet, various online attacks have been increased and among them, the most popular attack is phishing. Phishing is an online security attack where the hacker targets in achieving sensitive information like passwords, credit card information etc. from the users by making them to believe what they see is what it is. It is the combination of social engineering and technical methods to convince the user to reveal their personal data. The paper discusses about the Phishing social engineering attack theoretically and their issues in the life of human Beings. At the same time this paper also provides different techniques to detect these attacks so that they can be easily dealt with in case one of them occurs. The paper gives a thorough survey of various Phishing attacks along with their preventive measures.