Question

Social Engineering is a large advancement in technology over the past couple of decades. Provide a brief understanding of Social Engineering attacks and their effectiveness on attacks. Be sure to include 4 examples and at least 2 references. (250 words, NO COPY AND PASTE, cite sources, please and thank you)

Answer 1

Range of activities which are performed with the intention to harm others through human interactions is social engineering.

Social Engineering Attacks are as follows:

The attacker recce about the intended victim and gather necessary information about the one who will be attacked. Then the attacker proceeds to gain the trust of the victim and provides actions to break security practices, such as compelling the victim to let him know about the critical resources. Social Engineering is very dangerous as it is based on human error. Social Engineering is not based on vulnerabilities in software and operating systems. These kind of attacks takes place as there has been some kind of mistake made by the legitimate user. Such kinds of mistake are very less predictable and are very hard to identify.

Some examples of social engineering are as follows:

1. Phishing: In this, attackers use e-mails, social media, and other messaging media to to trick the victims and compel the victim to provide the attacker to their important information. This attack is done in the form of messages in which the attacker intents to gather the information of user.
2. Watering Hole: In this, the attacker injects malicious programs into Web pages which are public and many users regularly visits those websites. Once the victim visits the web page, the virus is installed on the computer of user.
3. Whaling attack: This attack is like phishing attack in which the attacker intends to steal the confidential information of the user.
4. Pretexting: This type of attack happens when the attacker pretends to be someone else and and in such a way the attacker intends to steal the confidential information of the victim.

References:

1. https://resources.infosecinstitue.com/common-social-engineering-attacks/

2. https://www.imperva.com/learn/application-security/social-engineering-attack/