Social Engineering Definition

Using manipulation and deceit to trick victims into giving out confidential information

Social engineering is a technique used by hackers and non-hackers to get access to confidential information. With social engineering, attackers use manipulation and deceit to trick victims into giving out confidential information.

Some of the social engineering methods attackers use include:

  • Sending messages that contain dangerous attachments (e.g., malware) with text that encourages people to open the attachments
  • Pretending to be the main administrator of a local network and asking for the victim’s password in order to perform a maintenance check
  • Telling a victim over the phone that he/she has won a prize, and asking for a credit card number in order to deliver it
  • Asking for a user’s password for a certain Internet service, such as a blog, and using the same password later to access the user’s computer. This technique works because users often use the same passwords for many different

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Glossary of Terms

Adware Botnet Cracking Crimeware Cyberbullying Cybercrime Cyberstalking Cyberterrorism Data-Theft DoS-Attack Hacking Hoax-Email Identity-Theft Keylogging Madware Malware Pharming Phishing Ransomware Scareware Smishing Social-Engineering Spam Spyware Trojan Virus Vishing Website-Defacement Worm