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)

Legal concerns of pretexting

There are questions as to whether some pretexting attempts are legal or not. In 2005, the Federal Trade Commission of the US gave some meaningful insights into the illegality of the practice. In its statements:

  • Pretexting involves the obtaining of sensitive information from customers or institutions using fraudulent and deceptive ways and is therefore illegal
  • To verify information obtained about a target from another institution is still deemed as pretexting and therefore illegal
  • The acquisition of phone records about a user from another institution is also pretexting and thus illegal

In its legal understanding, the FTC clarified that:

  • It is wrong and illegal for one to fraudulently or deceptively acquire information about a target either directly from a customer or from an institution that has information about a customer
  • It is illegal for one...