The Psychological Factors Attackers Into Social Engineering Attacks

Tom Van de Wiele, a principal security consultant at F-secure, says, “Real-life attackers, especially criminals, live off perfecting subtle social engineering tricks that trick human beings into letting their guard down. And letting employees believe that cutting-edge security technologies will handle everything gives a false sense of security, which is something today's attackers are counting on.”. Today hackers will use a hacking tactic called phishing, which involves sending emails from someone who seems legit to collect personal information and much more. Some people believe that the internet is fully protected and that everything on it is secured. But people have so much faith in technology instead of using common

Scareware: malware designed to trick victims into purchasing and downloading useless and potentially dangerous software

Malware, or “malicious software”, has taken different forms and names for years. Spyware and viruses are just a few of the common titles attributed to this devastating means of cyber attack, the main purpose of which is to ultimately compromise a rival's computer infrastructure. State-sponsored attacks have typically been perpetrated by means of malware. Spear-phishing is one particularly popular means of malware, where by a target is fooled into opening a corrupted email or file, only to unwittingly download a compromising piece of malware onto their computer (XX). Once this malware is installed, control of the computer is placed in the hands of the hacker, allowing them to hack other networks while proving impossible to track down (XX18). China has been a prime culprit for spear-phishing attacks, often following current events to target respective dignitaries. For instance, the 2010 G20 Summit saw thousands of spear-phishing campaigns against officials, with email titles labelled in relation to the Summit itself (XX). Countless departments, institutions, and governments have fallen victim to spear-phishing campaigns, at the count of millions of dollars and priceless information

Times have changed what was known as organized crime has been replaced by Cybercrimes (Heists: Cybercrimes with Ben Hammersley). Cybercrimes have risen dramatically in recent years and have become a major issue the United States and company’s face today jeopardizing as well as threatening the critical infrastructure of America (Cyberwar Threat, 2005). Sadly, the status quo of cyber security is very unstable with the advancements and growth which has put most individuals and businesses into an enormous threat (Agustina, 2015).

Social Engineering is the hardest form of attack to defend against because it cannot be defended with hardware or software alone.

Two of the common known attacks on computing systems are the deployment of computer viruses and malware.

Both the government and the private sector have been aware of the threat social engineering poses to information security since the 1980s, but it has only gained public notoriety within the last decade. Still, while today 's corporations may be prepared for a raid by anonymous cyber-terrorists striking from overseas, they continue to turn a blind eye to the dangers of socially engineered attacks. Thanks to a combination of corporate oversight and poor employee training, hackers with zero coding knowledge are able to penetrate their secured buildings and wreak havoc. In order to combat this vulnerability, the Department of Homeland Security should take an active role in the operational security of major American businesses through extensive auditing and employee training.

The idea of the malicious code or malware, (e.g., infections, worms, bots) moved as of late from upsetting support of effectively looking for financial benefit. Beforehand, worms were arranged essentially to spread. The effect on casualties and associations was essentially an interruption of administration bringing about the loss of efficiency and now and at that a point lost pay. Before long, innumerable imperative worms are proposed to take delicate information, for instance, Mastercard numbers, the council directed reserve funds numbers, stick codes, and passwords and send the data to the attacker for loathsome purposes including wholesale fraud.

In terms of computer security, Social Engineering refers to the psychological manipulation of people in order to access confidential information. It is believed that it can be easier to trick people than to hack into their computing system by force. Social engineers gather personal information or gain access to computers by exploiting people’s natural tendency to want to trust others and be helpful. Some methods that are used by social engineers to gain information are via email, the internet or even by phone to trick people into revealing sensitive information or get them to do something that goes against the company’s policy. “Social engineering has been an effective method of committing fraud for centuries. Recently, however, it has been used more and more to assist criminals in perpetrating crimes that can net large sums of money. Without one social engineering method or another, most current attacks would not be successful [11]”. Employees are an organization’s weakest link and social engineering attacks are only limited by the creativity of the perpetrator, which relies on the gullibility of people.

Messages that offer kinships, redirection, blessings and different free pictures and information exploit the namelessness and fellowship of the Internet to plant malicious code. The worker opens messages and connections thrash which Trojans, Viruses and Worms and other uninvited projects discover their direction into frameworks and networks.

The amount of information being processed and stored has grown significantly in recent years. This makes organisations a prime target in which they frequently fall victim to cybercrime, reasons being cybercriminals are often financially motivated. One of the main issues organisations face, users often create easy passwords to remember, which makes their credentials susceptible to various brute force attacks. Cybercriminals use elaborate tools and techniques to crack user credentials which may later be used to perform an attack to the systems on the network.

Almost all kind of large and small organizations might face increasing number of attacks into their network or intellectual property. This may lead to data disclosure, data destruction, and damage of organization’s reputation. There are numerous threats in the cyber space which might be capable of stealing, destroying or making use of out sensitive data for financial and non-financial gains. As the amount of computer, mobile and internet users increases, so does the number of exploiters.

Additionally, an advanced attacker can move laterally to more critical systems in an attempt to escalate their privileges within an environment. If the attacker succeeds, they can come and go as they please within a given enterprise “living off the land” by leveraging built-in tools to reduce the number of new executables—reducing the amount of change they introduce into the environment. As a result, the attacker can persist for long periods of time by adding more user and system accounts. By proactively deploying continuous data collection to track an attacker’s every move, and classifying threats by leveraging robust threat intelligence, enterprises can hunt across the attacker’s entire kill chain.

Social engineering is a non-technical method of intrusion that hackers uses in which Instead of technical attacks on systems, humans with access to information are the target for social engineers, influencing them into disclose confidential information or even into carrying out their malicious attacks through influence and persuasion. It is the art of getting users to mutually share information systems. In today 's scenario, it is one of the greatest threats that organizations

In today’s highly connected digital ecosystem, our lives, businesses, communications, and a lot of activities depend on the websites and web applications. All websites contain sensitive data and deliver business-critical information services to the targeted audience. Due to the rapidly increasing use of websites and web applications, vulnerabilities have become quite rampant. Even the smallest security loophole can give cybercriminals a chance to destroy the web-based business, damage customer confidence, and brand reputation in a short time span.