Everyone Is A Social Engineer

Children and even dogs seem like they understand how to apply the concept of social engineering. Children make lots of noise with promise of being quiet only when they get the toy or trip they want. Dogs pine for petting and herd humans to the pet food bowl hoping to have it filled. People are also manipulated psychologically until they do what hucksters wants such as give up personal or confidential information online and offline. Like DDoS (distributed denial of service) is usually one of many components of a blueprint with goals of extortion, system or network access, bribery, bullying, identity theft, business destruction, human and drug trafficking, and other types of fraud and illegal activity. On the flip side, these social engineering and hacking combination of activities may have a goal of "remedying a perceived social inequity" or achieving scientific research.

Some say that Kevin Mitnick, once known as the world's most wanted hacker, is the one who first coined the term "social engineering." The phrase has a bad reputation online, but whether it is a good or bad activity is in the mind of the beholder just as DDoS, phone pranks, and other activities that may socially engineer online and offline. Every time a woman or a man does anything in the attempt to get others to do what she or he wants, that is social engineering.

Again, social engineering is the act of duping an individual into revealing information that should be confidential or into doing something he or she would not normally do. The victims of such are not necessarily gullible or ignorant. Maybe it is just that they trust practically everyone. They enjoy helping others. On the other hand, the perpetrators of social engineering are appealing to universal, time-resistant human desires and emotions: lust, friendship, power, luck, money, greed, revenge, charity, accomplishment, fame, and being a part of a bigger cause. Perpetrators can easily trick people into giving up information that they have no idea is destined to compromise a server, computer, business, family, network, or other online or offline person, place, thing, idea or organization.

Hacking is the act of entering a computer system via a security breach; whereas, social engineering is as an invasion of the mind. Have you heard of emotional intelligence? People with keen emotional intelligence make great social engineers and can make unbelievable things happen just as computer system hackers can. Combine the two and discover potentially unstoppable collaborations that can wreak painful havoc, insane genius, unbelievable change-making or huge accomplishment for organizations and individuals online and offline. Sounds bad, doesn't it? However, the two are combined throughout history for good and evil, depending upon your point of view.

Think of a few: Google's Sergey Brin and Larry Page; Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, Dustin Moskovitz, Eduardo Saverin; Yahoo's Jerry Yang and David Filo; Dream Dinners' Stephanie Allen and Tina Kuna; PTL Club's Jim and Tammy Bakker; Super Technologies, DIDX and Virtual Phone Line's Ahmed and Bowen; EventBrite's Julia and Kevin Hartz; and CouchSurfing's Casey Fenton, Daniel Hoffer, Leonardo Bassani da Silveira, and Sebastian Le Tuan. They changed the way people think, do business, web search, find a date, act like they are somewhere that they are not, market, meet people, plan events, make phone calls, start new businesses, and establish identity.

Social engineering can convert people to a religion or bring them out. It can coerce people to obey or disobey government. It builds and destroys gang, social and civic, charitable, and educational institutions. Advertising and marketing techniques use social engineering.

The methods are just as varied as the kinds of people who execute the methods. Social engineers shoulder surf (watch and copy passwords and PINs by looking over the shoulder) and tailgate (literally follow someone into a high security area). They pretend to be a respected person or company over the phone, email, chat, forums, Twitter and other social networks and even in person. They tell you that they can reveal how you stack up against people in your industry, city, or social networks. They tell you they can let you know who leaves your social networks and maybe why. They tell you they need help and appeal to the type of person you are. How do they know the right things to say and do? They are often a part of ring of people who observe public information shared over the Internet. Believe it or not, it is a business.

Social engineering is not just what children do to get a toy or what dogs do to get a bone. It is a part of every day life online and offline. Be careful and do not become a victim of social engineering in a manner that will harm you or your organization. Stay in touch with anti cyber crime service providers who have experience with and knowledge of everything from social engineering to DDoS. Report cyber crimes to legal authorities.

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Lisa_Alfrejd/1682125

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/8130474