Social engineering is a password cracker’s use of psychological tricks on legitimate users of a computer system/network to gain the information (user names and passwords) he/she needs to gain access to a computer system network. Wikipedia defines it as “the act of manipulating people into performing actions or divulging confidential information.
Social engineering is basically a way to commit fraud in the information age or to “pull a con job” hacker style. This might involve gaining the confidence of employees with access to secure information, tricking them into thinking there is legitimate request to access secures information.
There are a great variety of attacks involving social engineering: from tricking online baking users to enter their details into a fake site, to gaining physical access to the organization through the manipulation of security guards and receptionists.
Social engineering preys on the fact that people are unable to keep up with the rapid advance of technology and little awareness of the value of information to which they have access.
Social engineering
