Malicious Activity: The Various Aspects Of Social Engineering Attacks (Essay Sample)

Social Engineering Attacks Student’s Name Institution The aspect of social engineering attacks is not only prevalent in business enterprises but are becoming increasingly even in the social life of every individual in social networks. Most of these attacks occur on online social networks such as Facebooks, computers, phones among others. The attackers and hackers are devising more pronounced and intelligent ways of fooling and tricking individuals and employees and getting access to valuable data, private information. Social engineering attack occurs where the attackers use psychological kind of manipulation hence tricking the users to make security mistakes or exposing sensitive information through computers or other devices such as phones. Online social networking is a platform with a lot of vulnerable attacks which will target a particular group of individuals using various techniques such as phishing, pretexting, malware among others. Harmless information can be shared or exploited through this social media and when the attacker get access to this information the more easily the attack can. In addition, it may happen through one or many steps (Ackroyd, 2014). First, the attacker will investigate the target victim to get the necessary information to access the entry points such as weak security and then proceed with the attack. Therefore, it’s crucial to detect the generic social network platform, which will correspond to these distinct functional features of these systems. This work tends to explain the various aspects of social engineering attacks and the possible methods to prevent these attacks. First reply on Social Engineering Attacks Social engineering or Reverse social engineering, on the other hand, is a direct attack to an individual or person-to-person in which the attacker convinces the victim that she/he is being faced by a certain problem now or in future and the attacker is there ready to solve the problem. The attacker pretends to be legitimate, and he or she is the authority of that organization that belongs to the victim. From this, he first gains the trust of the victim and then obtains the crucial and sensitive information through phone calls or even messages. According to a study done by researchers indicate that users in the online social networks tend to display the high rate of trust of messages sent by other online users. A good example of these attacks is through phishing where attackers send messages through email that comprise of malware and when the victim click to open the attacker get access to the organization. Second, reply Social engineering attack in RSA company In this company, the attackers used a simple technique to perform breaching in the company. According to information provided the hackers or attackers sent an email message which was written: “2011 Recruitment Plan” a few people or group of employees in the RSA company. In the process, one of the employees retrie...