Social engineering

Social engineering is a type of attack in which attackers target users directly, rather than trying to compromise complex systems. It’s a psychological manipulation of human nature, which involves tricking them into disclosing sensitive information. An attacker first collects information and investigates a target to find out a potential point of entry and weak security procedures in order to launch attacks.

Types of social engineering

There are two types of social engineering: computer- and mobile-based social engineering and human-based social engineering.

Computer- and mobile-based social engineering

There is a range of social engineering attacks based on computers, including the following:

• Phishing and spear phishing: Phishing is a type of social engineering attack where an attacker sends a malicious link to a cloned website or an email that tricks the user or users to enter sensitive information. If the attack is aimed at a specific...