What is Social Engineering?

Although it sounds somewhat ridiculous, hackers are extremely adept at exploiting the good and trusting nature of other human beings in order to con someone into giving them their passwords. This technique is defined by the term “social engineering.”

The most common way of utilizing this technique is when a hacker simply asks for a person’s password. A victim can be told an entirely believable story that would con them into giving up this critical security protection. A common way that facilitates social engineering for attackers is having staff directories with staff members’ names, phone numbers, email addresses, and other personal information.

By far, social media sites are the easiest places for social engineers to find information to use against their victims. Bad guys can learn personal information about you and concoct stories that seem entirely possible, but they are just using information that you post about yourself and information that others share about you to their advantage in order to scam you.