Displaying items by tag: email scams

Social engineering professionals deploy many methods in their attempts to manipulate the people they target. Email scams, telephone contacts, posing as a trusted vendor or service provider, direct contact, and social integration are a few of the methods that are commonly used. Social engineering methods continuously evolve with communications technology advancements. Criminals will seek to take advantage of any method that allows them to communicate with as many people as possible. Finding susceptible targets requires contact methods that can reach the masses since the percentage of people that will fall for the tricks is relatively low. As people become educated about certain social engineering methods, the public is able to detect and prevent these attacks, but criminals unfortunately adapt.

Social engineering is the art of manipulating people to get something that an individual or group wants which is normally inaccessible. Social engineering is expressed in our daily lives through various scams. In these cases, social engineering is used to try and acquire social security numbers, credit card numbers, birth dates, and other personal or sensitive information that can be exploited. Security experts study social engineering methods so they can apply technology and train personnel to prevent attacks on people and institutions. Espionage experts also master the art of social engineering to gain access to facilities or information they deem important.