ZeroGov

What is social engineering?

Social engineering is the psychological manipulation of people into performing actions or divulging confidential information. A type of confidence trick for the purpose of information gathering, it relies on tricking the victim into breaking normal security procedures.

The term social engineering as an act of psychological manipulation was first used by Kevin Mitnick, a famous computer security expert, in an article called “Social Engineering” in Pentest magazine in 2005. Mitnick described social engineering as “the art of manipulating people so they give up confidential information.”

However, the term social engineering has been used in other fields, such as psychology, sociology, anthropology, political science, and even economics. In all of these fields, social engineering refers to the process of coercion or manipulation of people into performing actions or divulging confidential information.

Social engineering is a type of security attack that relies on human interaction to fool people into breaking normal security procedures. By exploit- ing the natural tendency of people to trust other people and to want to help, social engineers are able to obtain sensitive information or gain access to restricted areas.

One common type of social engineering attack is called phishing. In a phishing attack, the attacker sends an email that appears to be from a trusted source, such as a bank or credit card company. The email contains a link that takes the victim to a fake website that looks like the real site. The victim is then asked to enter personal information, such as a credit card number or social security number.

Another common type of social engineering attack is called pretexting. In a pretexting attack, the attacker creates a false scenario and uses it to obtain personal information from the victim. For example, an attacker might call a victim and pretend to be a customer service representative from their bank. The attacker would then say that there was a problem with the victim’s account and ask for personal information in order to fix it.

Social engineering attacks can be difficult to detect because they rely on human interaction and not on technical vulnerabilities. For this reason, it is important to be aware of the techniques that attackers use and to be suspicious of any unexpected requests for personal information. View Source

What is a Trojan horse?

A Trojan horse may refer to either a literal horse from the Trojan War that was used to trick the enemy, or to a modern computer virus that masquerades as a legitimate file or program to trick the user.

In the Trojan War, the Greeks built a giant wooden horse and hid a group of their best soldiers inside. They left the horse outside the gates of Troy as a gift, and the Trojans dragged it inside the city. That night, the Greek soldiers emerged from the horse and opened the gates, allowing the rest of the Greek army to pour in and sack the city.

In the computer world, a Trojan horse is a piece of malware that masquerades as a legitimate file or program. Trojan horses can be used to deliver other malicious payloads, like viruses, ransomware, or spyware. They can also be used to gain access to a user’s system, or to create a backdoor allowing an attacker to remotely control the system.

Trojan horses are often spread via email attachments or social media links. They may also be bundled with legitimate programs or downloaded from malicious websites. Once installed, a Trojan horse can be difficult to detect and remove.

If you think you may have a Trojan horse on your system, it’s important to run a reputable antivirus program to scan for and remove the malware. You should also avoid clicking on unfamiliar links or downloading email attachments from unknown senders.

Visit malwarezero.org to learn more about the most dangerous computer virus. Disclaimer: We used this website as a reference for this blog post.