Chapter 5 - Social Engineering: Here's How I Broke Into Their Buildings

Abstract

Social engineering is the most essential weapon in a no-tech hacker's arsenal. No-tech hacker is equal parts opportunist, actor, and con artist. Security experts roll up all of that and more in the term social engineer. A hacker experiments with a piece of technology to see if he can get useful results from it that its creator never intended. A social engineer does the same thing with human relationships. Social engineering doesn't rely on a faulty piece of high-tech equipment to mount the attack. Rather, it uses a skilled attack on the psyche of the opponent. Most of the time, it can be accomplished with a clipboard and a cheap business card. So besides being easy, social engineering can be dirt-cheap. One of the best defenses against social engineering is awareness. Every employee should be educated on how easily social engineering can be used, the large threat it poses if not detected, and some simple countermeasures.