What Is Social Engineering?

Social engineering (also translated as: social engineering) emerged as a formal subject around the 1960s. The definition of broad social engineering is to establish theories and use natural, social, and institutional Ways to gradually solve various complex social problems. After years of application and development, social engineering has gradually produced branch disciplines, such as public security social engineering (referred to as public security social engineering) and network social engineering. ^[1]

Social engineering

Social Engineering (also translated as: Social Engineering) appeared as a formal subject around the 1960s, in a broad sense

World's No. 1 Hacker Kevin Mitnick in "

Social Engineering

Acquaintances speak well

This is the most widely used method among social engineers. The principle is roughly the same. The social engineer first becomes a classmate, colleague, friend, etc. you often come into contact with by various means (including disguise). Then, gradually, the identity he disguised. , Recognized by other colleagues in your company, this way, social engineers will often visit your company and eventually win the trust of anyone. As a result, social engineers can gain a lot of authority in your company to implement some of their plans. For example, visit office or confidential areas that should not be allowed, or have access to the office after work.

2. Fake similar information background

When you start to reach people who seem familiar with the internal situation of your organization and they have some undisclosed information, you can easily treat them as yourself. So, when strangers enter your office as a company or employee, they can easily obtain a permit. But in today's society, it is too easy to obtain specific personal information from various social networks. Therefore, I suggest that if anyone claims to be very familiar with a colleague, especially a superior leader, the employee can be allowed to wait in the designated area without giving any permission.

3. Pretend to be a newcomer and break into the interior

If you want to obtain certain confidential information of the company with certainty, the social engineer can also disguise as a stranger who comes to apply for a job, thus making himself "the person" of the company. This is one of the reasons why every new hire must go through the company background review stage. Of course, there are still some social engineers who have done a lot to hide the truth, so there should be restrictions in the working environment of new employees. This sounds harsh, but each new employee must be given a period of time to prove that they have valuable core assets It is trustworthy. Even so, good social engineers are well versed in the company's work processes, so they will not really implement their goal plans until they have fully gained company-level trust.

4. Take advantage of interview opportunities

Similarly, a lot of important information is often leaked in the communication during the interview. Hackers who are proficient in social engineering will grasp this and use it. Instead of going to work one day in order to obtain this information, they can participate in the interview. To get some important information about the company. Therefore, it is recommended that companies need to ensure that during the interview, some of the information given does not contain company confidential information, and try to make some interview standards to protect the company's core confidentiality.

5. No taboos for the wicked

This may sound counterintuitive, but it does work. Ordinary people generally choose to avoid people who show anger and fierceness. When they see someone holding a mobile phone in front of them arguing loudly or cursing angrily, many people choose to avoid them and stay away from them. In fact, most people may choose this way, thus giving the social engineer a way to the company's internal and core data. Don't be deceived by this trick. Once you see something similar happen, just inform the security to deal with it.

6. He understands me like a maggot in my belly

An experienced social engineer is good at reading and using the body language of others. He may appear at a concert with you at the same time, and he appreciates a certain section like you, and always gives you appropriate feedback when communicating with you, making you feel as if you have met a confidant from your heart! Between you and him Began to establish a two-way open bond, and slowly, he began to influence you, and then used you to obtain all the confidential information of your company that is valuable to him. It sounds like a spy story, but in fact, this kind of picture often happens to us, don't take it lightly.

7. Beauty plan

Our ancestors have long mentioned the beauty of beauty, but many times, most people cannot resist this trick. Just like our fantasy plot in movies and TV shows, suddenly one day, a handsome guy (or beauties) suddenly asks you to go out. During this time, the two of you will see each other, and they will laugh and laugh, even more wonderfully, meet After that, appointments followed one after another, until she could talk about eating like a meal, and she could easily extract the company's confidential information from your mouth without effort. I'm not trying to banish your romantic relationship, but there will be no pie in the sky, please be alert to those who ask questions that should not be asked.

8. Monks from outside will read the scriptures

This is already happening. A social engineering attacker often acts as a technical consultant, and at the same time as completing some consulting work, they also obtain your personal information. This is especially true for technical consultants. You must review these technical consultants and make sure that they are not given any opportunity to disclose confidential information. Don't trust others simply because someone has the ability to help you solve server or network problems. It does not mean that they will not use this to create a backdoor program or copy all confidential data on your computer. Therefore, the key is to review, review, and review.

9. Goodness is the epitaph of the good

This method is simple and so common. The social engineer will wait for the opportunity, waiting for the target employee in their eyes to enter the company immediately behind them when they open the door with their own password. They did it very cleverly by carrying heavy boxes and asking their target employees to hold the doorknob for them. The kind staff usually help them at the door. The social engineer can then begin his task.

10. Have a technical exchange

The movie "Hackers" has such a scene-Dade (also known as Zero Cool) calls a company and convinces an employee to give him the number of modems. The conversation inside is his main penetration job, and the unlucky employee will naturally tell him Any confidential information you need to know. This is an ordinary social worker attack. When an unguarded employee encounters a well-prepared and carefully disguised hacker, most people will leak to the social engineer any secrets because they have no experience in dealing with social engineering attacks data. ^[2]

In the actual case of social engineering attack, if the user is not allowed to enable macros, the attack may not have such a large impact. Information security engineer Li Dongwei said that enterprises can use deep packet inspection technology (DPI), behavior analysis, and threat intelligence to monitor abnormal behaviors at the network layer, such as working documents with macro viruses displayed in a social worker attack case. Enterprises can use next-generation endpoint security technologies to perform similar functions on endpoint devices, which will help mitigate many social engineering attacks.
Li Dongwei further added that enterprises should force the application of network segment scanning, multi-factor authentication, and evidence chain forensics on the network and endpoints to prevent lateral infections, limit losses due to stolen credentials, and understand violations. The scope of the action to ensure that all related malware is removed.

For targeted ransomware, enterprises should combine minimum-privileged zero-trust measures and behavior detection to resolve sexual ransomware, monitor attack behaviors, and limit the abuse of leaked credentials. If cybercriminals have attacked and sexually extorted corporate employees, the extortion information is likely to be sensitive corporate data. At this time, the law, human resources and law enforcement departments need to play a role, and training staff awareness and response skills has a very obvious effect on reducing losses.
Targeting newcomers' attacks, to detect spies who have been mixed into the company under the guise of work, consider employees who have never taken a vacation or even sick leave, because they may worry that their activities will be detected after leaving the company.
Attacking methods for malicious robots can use tools such as abnormal behavior monitoring products and some anti-virus and anti-malware software, which can effectively detect the behavior of malicious robots and their changes to the browser. Enterprises can also use threat intelligence software and network IP address trust information to detect malicious bots. ^[3]