What is social engineering?

This practice basically exploits the trust that the user unwittingly places in the criminals, who often pose as a company employee, colleagues, friend or boss. Under the guise of checking or protecting the user's information, the criminals ask for confidential information which can then be used to steal the victim's identity, money and so on.

The act of social engineering can start with the offline environment and then move to online activities which are all associated with one motive in mind, which is to gain unauthorized access to PCs and personal information. Social engineering tactics reveal themselves in the form of phishing attacks, spear phishing attacks, and email hoaxes, as well as a myriad of offline activities.

How social engineering is performed?

We will take a look at some of the offline activities that criminals use to perpetrate social engineering and some of the ways hackers perform social engineering methods online later.