Social engineering is a tricky, and fascinating, field of study. It involves the research, analysis, and execution of methods to exploit human behavior for a specific goal. These means you’ll need to use social intelligence and manipulation in order to achieve your endgame.
Social engineers are people who find new ways to exploit weaknesses in people or security systems that could be exploited with enough planning and preparation. There are many different types of social engineers; some work for malicious hackers and other as researchers trying to make the world safer from them.
The role of a social engineer requires having an understanding of how people think and behave under stress or in unusual circumstances. It also requires being able to blend into any environment or situation without raising suspicion while collecting useful information about that place or person.
What does a social engineer do?
Social engineers earn money by helping businesses and corporations protect themselves against potential security threats. They also help with team building, training, and promoting teamwork.
A social engineer is basically a con artist. They get information by deceiving and tricking people. They do this by acting like a person from a different department in their company who needs information from you.
Social engineers learn about their companies’ processes and the people involved in them. Once they understand the process, they try to find ways to improve communication. They want to make sure all the people involved in the process know what they need to know when they need to know it.
Social engineers also try to find ways to protect the company, its employees, and clients from online threats. They do this by studying how hackers get into people’s computers. They use these methods to protect their own companies and clients from the same threats.
Why is social engineering important?
Social engineering is a crucial part of business and life. You may not realize it, but you’re probably being social engineered every day. This is because the human being has always used social engineering as a tool to advance culture, society, and the economy. There’s a good chance that the society you live in is the way it is because of those human social bounds. A social engineer could be a government official trying to collect taxes from a group of people. They could also be a business leader looking for new ways to make their company profitable.
Social engineering is also a key factor in marketing strategies. Successful marketing companies employ social engineers to help gather data from potential customers. They use this data to create successful marketing campaigns.
4 documentaries to understand the basics of social engineering
Human resources: Social engineering in the 20th century
In the early 20th century, social engineering took root in the industrialization and management of corporate employees. This documentary examines the development of mechanistic thinking and human exploitation as a result of hierarchical organization. Behaviorism, scientific management, work-place democracy, schooling, frustration-aggression theory and human experimentation are among the topics discussed.
Social Engineering: Hack me if you can
This 2h30 french documentary (in english language) is a round table that explores every aspects of social engineering with top specialists of the fields. What methods and cognitive biases do they employ? Phishing, spear phishing, baiting, tailgating, etc. How do attackers continue to exploit vulnerabilities stemming from the digitization of human relations? Despite the fact that naive people are not the only victims, attacks become even more sophisticated. What technical solutions can be used to combat them? How should humans at the human level be educated, trained, and informed in order to combat them? Is it possible to reduce the attack surface by restricting what data we share online, albeit somewhat unwillingly? Humans are the weakest link, but they can in fact become the strongest.
The Pyschology of Social Engineering by Niall Merrigan
A 52 minutes conferences presented in 2018 at NDC explores the cognitive mechanisms behind influence, suggestion and persuasion across art and advertisement to explain cognitive bias concept. Humans have a powerful brain, but it has limitations. Cognitive biases are mental habits that help you comprehend and decide on matters in a quick manner. Biases function as tips for figuring out the world and making decisions that are relatively fast. Breaking our head minutes after minutes, this conferences then expose how those bias are then used by scammers and cyber attackers.
Takedown: the true story of Kevin Mitnick
This is a movie, but you can watch it as a documentary. The 2000 American thriller is based on the non-fiction book Takedown written by Kevin Mitnick himself. It depicts the hunt of cybersecurity expert Tsutomu Shimomura, to find computer hacker Kevin Mitnick. The hacker used a mix or human manipulation and electronic gadgetry to hack into countless computer system. Despite being classified as “extremely inaccurate” by Kevin Mitnick when its related to the real events, this movie is a good entertainment showing how you can crack human brain easier than computer systems.
Conclusion
Social engineering is a crucial field of study for cybersecurity. It helps us better understand the human race. It helps us to improve our society as a whole. If you feel like you’re good at understanding people, problem solving, and have a knack for artistry, then it might be a great career path for you. It’s a challenging and rewarding field of study that is more related to creativity and social skills than technological knowledge.
