Social Engineering: The Weakest Link In The Security Chain

In “The Social Construction of What?” Hacking explores many topics including the subject of physics. Hacking is a philosopher who is an expert in continental philosophy as well as social theory. He states the common claims of constructionists as X not being inevitable and that it should be improved and reformed. Hacking also speaks of how constructionists apply these criticisms to things such as gender, race, and the topic of women. He goes against the view of many physicists who believe that the results of research are “as is”. He states that the contingency of science is found in the way in which the question is in fact stated. Although, after the framing of the questions, the answers or “contents” of science are non-contingent.

Social-networking sites have security vulnerabilities, which makes the use of them unsafe in health care organizations. Social-networking sites are designed for sharing information, and their security is “lax or confusing,” which makes it easy for unauthorized users to access people’s information. Keeping up with the updated security options is difficult because these sites change their security options on a “haphazard basis” (Ciampa, 2015, p.52).

It is estimated that cyber-attacks cost companies as much as $400 billion per year. Two of the most devastating attacks are distributed denial of service and social engineering. Although, there is no way to be completely safe from attack, there are precautions to take to help prevent them.

The expression “Social Engineering” is used to point out the ability of an individual to use some of the characteristics of the human nature in order to accomplish their personal goals. Social engineering can be used to control a large number of individuals using a variety of means such as ruling, media etc.

Significance: This topic is very significant to my audience because of the rise of cyber attacks at individual to national level. Ignorance of social engineering attack methods makes on a weak link where social engineering attacks can compromise individual, company, state and federal records

Social Engineering is coined as the art of human hacking. While it is great to be ahead of the game with all those fancy firewalls, switches and routers many companies fall short on one of the most important aspects of security, Social Engineering. Social Engineering is the one thing that will not trigger a single alarm and will bypass all of a company’s defenses. In a scenario, a few investigators show up at your local office and show their badges and ask for a tour of the place. You 're legally required to allow these investigators access in order for them to do their job. They ask a plethora of questions, even some that may seem out of the ordinary, looking at your physical security systems, asking for passwords, taking any readings they can off of everything and storing the information. They seem to be experts at their job, so you don’t question any of their alarming methods; however, they are actually security consultants conducting a Social Engineering 'penetration test ' or experiment and grabbing access cards, installing keystroke loggers, stealing passwords and generally getting away with as much of your business 's private information as they can get their hands on. Social engineers take advantage of human behavior and they aren 't worried about getting through your firewalls, switches, routers or other online defenses. Even your ‘fancy’ biometrics won 't mean much if your users are tricked into clicking on a malicious link they think came from a friend on the

It takes time and money to adjust IT security measures in response to evolving attack tactics. As defenders gradually update their security measures, attackers respond accordingly. Such arms-race dynamics lead to threats of increasing sophistication and efficiency. Today’s cybercriminals often have a long-term interest in their targets and often employ social engineering to get inside a protected environment. Their tactics commonly include malicious payload that attempts to compromise the victim’s system and may continue spreading within the organization. They also increasingly focus on weaknesses at the application, rather than system or network levels, to obtain data that provide the most value.

Wolfgang Goerlich once said, ““Employees make decisions every day that negatively affects their business’s security…As a result, we have known for a while that, to protect organizations, employees need online street smarts. However, the problem is that some in the industry treats employee awareness as a training concern or one-time activity. It is not. It is an ongoing cultural problem.”1 The question is then levied, “How do we influence a cultural shift?”. It is evident that personnel need to be better trained in cyber security, but will training adults currently in the workforce be sufficient? I believe that cyber security education must begin at earlier ages if a cultural shift is ever going to happen. Cyber security should receive the same attention that physical security receives during early childhood development. Successful integration of cyber security into early childhood development will result in more conscientious adults and will require engaged parents, integration into institutional learning, and integration into media.

The media is full of stories of hacking doing untold damage estimated in the millions of dollars. On the same note, identity theft is a major global problem and despite numerous efforts by governments to ensure citizens do not fall prey to fraudsters, the human condition remains the weakest link in information security hence, social engineering thrives under these circumstances.

Finally, in conclusion entities need to take steps to minimize or reduce the impact of successful attacks by providing continuous employee education on new trends and developments in the industry. Additionally raising awareness and a culture of security vigilance is the most effective way of detecting and preventing social engineering attacks and security breaches. Moreover, for organization’s to survive in this day and age they should develop and constantly update a robust contingency plan that should cater for all sorts of information security incidents, including social

Did you know that one of the biggest threats to information security is something we are interacting with on a day to day basis? The people around us can be a huge threat to security without us even realizing it. Social engineering is a non-technical attack used to gather and exploit confidential information (Avoiding Social Engineering). Although the definition that was just given is correct, Ian Mann (2012) also states that social engineering is better defined as “to manipulate people, by deception, into giving out information, or performing an action” (pg.12). Human interaction is the gateway to a social engineering attack, which means it can happen right under someone’s nose without them even realizing. The more advanced technology gets, the more deceptive and advanced hackers are getting. Today, social engineering accounts for 66% of all attacks performed by hackers (The Social Engineering Infographic).

In this paper we discuss some of the most common types of social engineering attacks that are widely used. We will also cover how to defend ourselves from these attacks and why these attacks work in today’s society. By following the money trail, we’ll also shed light on how lucrative this business can be as well as why people

Security is only ever as strong as its weakest link, and the majority of the time, an organisation 's users become the weakest point. No matter how much money is invested in security, installing firewalls, intrusion prevention systems, complex remote access systems, security guards, physical access passes or a myriad of other solutions that combine to form strong layered security, if users are not educated in the basic principles of security, it is all pointless.

Some of them might accidentally bring risk upon the company, while others might do it deliberately. According to a survey conducted by Ponemon Institute (2012, p. 2), seventy-eight percent of businesses had experienced a security issue due to employees within the past two years.

Have you ever had your phone or computer hacked before? I know I have, and many times it happens without me even realizing it. In today's society hacking has become so easy that even the most inexperienced hackers can manage to steal your private data. This is one of my main reasons for not supporting electronic voting machines (EVMs). I feel that in addition to the security and integrity of the vote it also saves states on the hefty costs to obtain and routinely maintenance these machines. EVMs also may sound good to the new generation of Iphone and Android cell phone users, but for the older generations this technology may be extremely confusing. Paper ballots have been the method of voting for many years and have not caused so much conflict, why try to change a system that's effective?