Throughout my relatively short adult life I have been interested in human behavior and as a result have become vastly familiar with Social Engineering. I practice Social Engineering every day in some way, shape or form. As you become more aware of it you start to understand how people work.
By some definitions Social engineering is the art of manipulating people into performing actions or divulging confidential information, rather than by breaking in or using technical cracking techniques. (Joan Goodchild, "Social Engineering: The Basics")
Social Engineering is used everyday in all life situations. It is important to understand that everything people do and say is for a motive. I am not trying to give the impression that life is some morbid place, these are just my opinions and observations. The majority of us are good-natured, however you need to be aware of the people who are looking to use it against you. On any given day there are several attempts of identity theft from social engineers. We will get into that later.
By accepting and understanding that everyone has some type of motive, you will soon start to put the pieces together and see what is happening around you in your day-to-day life. Your work place is the best place to observe the trends of what people say and do. Think of everything said and done like a chess game. There are many steps that lead you to where you are, and many more steps to where you will be. You need to see the most likely possible situations and deduce why someone would say or do something a certain way. Once you are cognizant of this you can start to understand Social Engineering.
Over the next four weeks I will be going over how social engineering can help you in every day situations along with understanding how to protect yourself against social engineers.
Part 2 coming Friday September 2nd, 2011.
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