As social engineering attacks continue to grow in sophistication and frequency, companies should look to employee education as a first line of defense. Learn how to recognize and avoid social engineering attacks in this installment of our Data Protection 101 series.
A DEFINITION OF SOCIAL ENGINEERING
Social engineering is a non-technical strategy cyber attackers use that relies heavily on human interaction and often involves tricking people into breaking standard security practices. The success of social engineering techniques depends on attackers’ ability to manipulate victims into performing certain actions or providing confidential information. Today, social engineering is recognized as one of the greatest security threats facing organizations. Social engineering differs from traditional hacking in the sense that social engineering attacks can be non-technical and don’t necessarily involve the compromise or exploitation of software or systems. When successful, many social engineering attacks enable attackers to gain legitimate, authorized access to confidential information.