What is Social Engineering?

Social engineering is a technique of attack which is based on human interaction. By using Social engineering, hackers trick individuals to give their personal information or install malicious program on the user’s system to access passwords and other sensitive information.

Attackers use different techniques to trick user. Attackers will pose as user’s trustworthy person and then ask for sensitive information which victims generally gives them.

How to Get Rid of Social Engineering?

To get rid of Social engineering is impossible as it is not a malicious software or link or file, it is a technique which is based on human trust.

This type of attack can only be avoided and users should not allow them to be fooled.

Also Read: Sniffer: Safeguard Your System From It!

How to Protect Yourself From Social Engineering?

There are different steps that you must follow in order to prevent yourself from it.

• Do not open any attachments which you do not trust.
• Avoid all the offers that are unneeded.
• Do not buy anything online for which you are not certain about.
• Do not give any personal information to anyone.
• Do not click on untrusted links.
• Always download software from legitimate
• Always keep popup and adblocker installed.
• Do not disable your system’s firewall.
• Always buy online from trusted ecommerce websites and sellers.
• Before purchasing anything online do a full research about the seller and the product you are trying to purchase.

Also Read: What is BlueBorne Attack and How to Stay Protected

Some Common Types of Social Engineering

Phishing

It is a type of attack in which attacker behaves as legitimate entity to trick victims into providing their personal information.

Spear Phishing

In this type of attack attackers send emails to target which appears to come from genuine source to get important information.

Vishing

It is also known as Voice Phishing. In this type of attack, criminals send voice message or contact the victims over the phone to extract personal information.

Pretexting

It is an attacking techniques in which criminals ask series of questions to get personal information.

Baiting

In Baiting, criminals either show different discounts to the user or send victim some gifts, so that victims may fall into this trick and provide their personal information to get the offers or use the electronic device which contains malicious software.

Also Read: All About Spider Ransomware

There are different types of social engineering attacks that criminals use. However, we have only listed some of them.

Whichever the attack may be, the main purpose of these attacks is to steal important information and then use it to gain profit. To avoid these types of attacks users should be self-aware and do not get fooled by the attackers.