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Learn Social Engineering
Learn Social Engineering

Learn Social Engineering: Learn the art of human hacking with an internationally renowned expert

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Learn Social Engineering

The Psychology of Social Engineering – Mind Tricks Used

The entire social engineering attack is psychological and is effective because of the mind tricks played on targets by the attackers. These mind tricks are aimed at altering the thought patterns of victims to make them more compliant with the demands of a social engineer no matter how unusual they may seem. Taking a look at the entertainment industry, especially TV shows and movies, mind tricks are portrayed as mystical powers. Those that possess them are shown to, with very little effort, target people and get them to hand over their property and money among many other things. A 2016 series called The Catch is one of these movies. It introduces the audience to the life of a con best known as Christopher Hall. He is presented as a pro in social engineering. In the series, he is able to con his fiancée out of her...

Introduction

In law enforcement, there are expert interrogators that undergo special training to learn how to draw the truth out of suspects. They learn the psychology of the human brain and how to unlock the brains of suspects and draw the truth out. Mind tricks are therefore, not a fantasy that can only be done in movies; they are real. It is the cues that people give that, if studied well, can make someone a mind reader. In this chapter, you will learn how attackers observe these cues and how they pose questions based on the behavior of a target to get them talking. Alongside this, you will learn how they build rapport with the target, how they gain trust, and how they build confidence with the target. These are tricks used even by salesmen to convince people into buying from them things that they would naturally not buy. Lastly, the chapter looks into the ultimate mind trick...

Modes of thinking

To get into a target's brain, an attacker needs to understand the target's way of thinking fully. It is the most logical thing to do to avoid wasting effort and time trying to guess around with mind tricks which may fail and foil the whole attack. One does not need to be a psychologist to understand how people think; all that is necessary is some attentive listening and careful posing of questions to know this. The FBI understands this and in one of its bulletins, it explained that if one could confirm a nonverbal behavior to a client in the client's preferred way as well as match the client's speech volume and tone, the client would open up. What the bulletin was saying was that if one understood a client's mode of thinking and then matched it both verbally and nonverbally, the client would not be reluctant to reveal intimate details...

Microexpressions

As humans develop, they get acquainted with reading facial expressions. They can tell whenever the other person is happy, sad, disgusted, and so on just by looking at their faces. However, these expressions can also be faked and humans also grow up knowing how to subtly fake them. These expressions that are worn on the human face for a long time are called macroexpressions. Since they are not so involuntary, they can be faked and thus cannot be fully relied on. However, there are expressions called microexpressions. These are involuntary and cannot be faked or controlled. They are caused by emotions deep within when they trigger and cause unanticipated muscle twitches on the face. These expressions are short, do not even last a second, and are almost impossible to control. They manifest over the macroexpressions that one can wear for a long period to fool other...

NLP

NLP studies the way humans think and experience the environment surrounding them. It leads to the formation of models of how some principles work. However, it is controversial since it is admittedly not precise. The history of NLP can be tracked down to the 1970s. It was developed by Bandler and Grinder. They were the first researchers to come up with the code of NLP. They also developed a therapy model called the meta-model which they refined over the years for NLP.

Neurolinguistic programming, by E. H. Marcus, Personnel Journal (Pre-1986), Volume 62, (000012), pp. 972, 1983 available at https://search.proquest.com/docview/203642455?accountid=45049.

Codes of NLP

When Bandler and Grinder came up with NLP, it was not as...

Human buffer overflow

In the overview, it was said that the human brain can be hacked just like a computer. The previous sections have shown that emotions can be hacked in a target. This section discusses a much stronger hacking method of the human brain. Computer programs have been hacked with this technique where they are given larger sized inputs to hold in their buffers than they typically can. Buffers are memory storage areas used to hold certain data. When data supplied exceeds the limits, it causes an overflow. This overwhelms the programs causing errors and undesired behavior. This also facilitates a hacker to give some malicious commands when the computer programs are unable to control their own execution.

Study on estimating probabilities of buffer overflow in high-speed communication networks by Izabella Lokshin, Telecommunication Systems, Volume 62, Isssue 2, pp. 289...

Tips

The tips for mind hacking are as follows:

  • Learn how to ask the right questions
  • Make sure your body language is in sync with your words
  • Building rapport is not what you say; it's how you say it
  • Rapport is established by matching and mirroring
  • Humans are the weakest point of any organization; the more you understand humans, their behaviors, and their history, the better you can hack them

Summary

Mind tricks are the heart of a social engineering attack. They allow a social engineer to get into the target's brain and alter their decision making to follow a certain route. This chapter has gone through many ways in which a social engineer can get into a target's brain. The focus has been the subconscious brain, which plays a very important decision-making role in that it makes decisions before the conscious brain. Once some information is given to this part of the brain, it will decide in favor of it. The subconscious brain is, however, open to attacks. Emotions can be planted into it through microexpressions, thoughts can be sneaked into it, and it can suffer from buffer overflow. It is these vulnerabilities that allow social engineers to hack humans into deciding to make certain decisions. It has been discussed how all these things take time to practice...

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Key benefits

  • •Learn to implement information security using social engineering
  • •Get hands-on experience of using different tools such as Kali Linux, the Social Engineering toolkit and so on
  • •Practical approach towards learning social engineering, for IT security

Description

This book will provide you with a holistic understanding of social engineering. It will help you to avoid and combat social engineering attacks by giving you a detailed insight into how a social engineer operates. Learn Social Engineering starts by giving you a grounding in the different types of social engineering attacks,and the damages they cause. It then sets up the lab environment to use different toolS and then perform social engineering steps such as information gathering. The book covers topics from baiting, phishing, and spear phishing, to pretexting and scareware. By the end of the book, you will be in a position to protect yourself and your systems from social engineering threats and attacks. All in all, the book covers social engineering from A to Z , along with excerpts from many world wide known security experts.

Who is this book for?

This book targets security professionals, security analysts, penetration testers, or any stakeholder working with information security who wants to learn how to use social engineering techniques. Prior knowledge of Kali Linux is an added advantage

What you will learn

  • •Learn to implement information security using social engineering
  • •Learn social engineering for IT security
  • •Understand the role of social media in social engineering
  • •Get acquainted with Practical Human hacking skills
  • •Learn to think like a social engineer
  • •Learn to beat a social engineer
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Publication date : Apr 30, 2018
Length: 566 pages
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Language : English
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Table of Contents

15 Chapters
Introduction to Social Engineering Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
The Psychology of Social Engineering – Mind Tricks Used Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Influence and Persuasion Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Information Gathering Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Targeting and Recon Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Elicitation Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Pretexting Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Social Engineering Tools Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Prevention and Mitigation Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Case Studies of Social Engineering Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Ask the Experts – Part 1 Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Ask the Experts – Part 2 Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Ask the Experts – Part 3 Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Ask the Experts – Part 4 Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Other Books You May Enjoy Chevron down icon Chevron up icon

Customer reviews

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Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Half star icon 4.8
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hakan uzuner May 27, 2018
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
One of the best books I've read in security. I would definitely recommend it
Amazon Verified review Amazon
tabriz42 Mar 13, 2020
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
This is a very comprehensive and well-organized text. I’m going to use it for my social engineering course.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
CISO Aug 17, 2022
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
Recommend by world famous Troy Hunt , Kevin Mitnick written also by world famous expert together with globaly known experts .There is no better way to Learn Social Engineering from a book .The book deserves the Best of All Time award
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Uf Apr 24, 2023
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
Surrounded by jerks, idiots and psychopaths? situations that make no sense? hacks, tricks and unwanted calls? This book puts light and understanding on many things that put our life upside down. Citizen, employee, employer or retiree, this will help you.It will not fix corporate and governmental procedures, law, or exploitation tricks, but may raise awareness on what you are exposed to. Known in advance, it will help you to STOP abuses.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
Mr. Rex Taylor Sep 30, 2021
Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon Full star icon 5
Covers a lot of information and very helpful in understanding this.
Amazon Verified review Amazon
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