Social Engineering Attack

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 Social Engineering Attack 

The 2002 film “Catch Me If You Can” tells the true story of (perhaps) one of the most accomplished practitioners of social engineering of all time. In the film, Leonardo DiCaprio portrayed a man named Frank W. Abagnale, Jr., who executed various high-profile cons, committed bank fraud and masqueraded in a variety of personas, including as a physician and pilot. Abagnale’s success depended on his ability to convince his victims that his forgeries, whether they were checks, diplomas or identities, were genuine. Abagnale was an active con man in the ‘60s and ‘70s, but the practice of social engineering has continued to develop and remains a powerful tool for hackers and fraudsters to gain access to closed systems around the world.

What you need to know: Social engineering is the term used for a broad range of malicious activities accomplished through psychological manipulation to trick users into making security mistakes or giving away sensitive information. What makes social engineering especially dangerous is that it relies on human error, rather than vulnerabilities in software and operating systems. Mistakes made by legitimate users are much less predictable, making them harder to identify and thwart than a malware-based intrusion


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