Book Image

Learn Social Engineering

Book Image

Learn Social Engineering

Overview of this book

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.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)

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...