Social engineering

Before we discuss SET, we need to define what social engineering is. There are many different definitions and interpretations depending on the field of study. In the cyber security field, social engineering is defined as manipulating someone into disclosing confidential information or gaining access to restricted areas such as a server room. It is common for hackers to disguise themselves as an employee from a third-party company like an AC repair man. A hacker may also pose as high level management on the phone or in an e-mail.

In February 2016, Snapchat's human resources (HR) department was hacked. The hack started with social engineering. A hacker was able to do some reconnaissance on the CEO of Snapchat and construct ...

Get Applied Network Security now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.