Social engineering !!! |Rajat Poonia Rajasthan

Social engineering is the same as hacking in general:to gain unauthorise access to systems or information in order to commit fraud,identity theft,network intrusion or simply to disrupt the system or network.
   In a social engineering attack,an attacker uses human interaction(social skills) to obtain or compromise information about an organation or its computer systems.
Social engineering is successful because its victims innately want to trust other people and are naturally helpful.The victims of social engineering are tricked into releasing information that they don't realize will be used to attack a computer network.
For example,an employee in an enterprise may be tricked into revealing an employee identification number to someone who is pretending to be someone he trusts or representing someone he trusts. While that employee number may not seem valuable to the employee, which makes it easier for him to reveal the information in the first place, the social engineer can use that employee number in conjunction with other information that has been gathered to get closer to finding a way into the enterprise system network.

How do you avoid being a victim ?

-> Be suspicious of unsolicited phone calls,visits,or email messages from
 individuals asking about employees or other internal information.If one unknown
individuals claims to be a legitimate organization,try to verify his or her identity directly with the company.

-> Do not reveal personal or financial information in email, and do not respond to email solicitations for this information. This includes following links sent in email.
->Pay attention to the URL of a website. Malicious websites may look identical to a legitimate site, but the URL may use a variation in spelling or a different domain (e.g., .com vs. .net).
->Don't send sensitive information over the Internet before checking a website's security.
->** If you are unsure whether an email request is legitimate, try to verify it by contacting the company directly. Do not use contact information provided on a website connected to the request; instead, check previous statements for contact information. Information about known phishing attacks is also available online from groups such as the Anti-Phishing Working Group.
->Take advantage of any anti-phishing features offered by your email client and web browser.


What do you do if you think you are a victim ?

->If you believe your financial accounts may be compromised, contact your financial institution immediately and close any accounts that may have been compromised. Watch for any unexplainable charges to your account.
->Immediately change any passwords you might have revealed. If you used the same password for multiple resources, make sure to change it for each account, and do not use that password in the future.
->Watch or search for other signs of identity theft.
->Consider reporting the attack to the police, and file a report with the FTC.