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)

Getting into conversations with strangers

In any social engineering attack, the social engineer wants the target to take action and either say something or do something. It could be as little as answering some questions or as much as giving a social engineer a tour of a restricted area in an organization. Elicitation occurs through simple conversations with people. Small conversations are held between strangers every day and thus people are not so much alarmed when strangers approach them and engage them in small talk. It could be at a queue in a store, a table in a restaurant, or during an event. There is a high chance of sparking a conversation with a target if prior research has been done about them to find out the places they frequently visit and things that they like doing in such places. There are three steps towards initiating a successful small talk with a stranger. These...