Social Engineering

Social engineering is a term used for a broad range of malicious activities accomplished through human interactions. It uses psychological manipulation to trick users into making security mistakes or giving away sensitive information. Social engineering attacks happen in one or more steps. A perpetrator first investigates the intended victim to gather necessary background information, such as potential points of entry and weak security protocols, to find their way into an organization. The perpetrator then moves to gain the victim's trust and provide stimuli for them to act, thus facilitating fraudulent transactions, providing the attacker with access to systems as a gateway to commit further harmful activities, such as data theft, espionage, sabotage, and extortion. Social engineering attacks can be well-disguised and are not always easy to spot. Perpetrators of these attacks can be internal or external and their attacks are typically tailored to the intended target. Social engineering can be combined with hacking in order to gain unauthorised access to systems and data. For example, an attacker might call a staff member and pose as an IT support worker, in order to trick them into divulging their login credentials. In Hebrew, social engineering is known as הנדסה חברתית. In French, it is referred to as ingénierie sociale, and in German, it is called Sozialtechnik or social engineering.