Ruchika Lalit¹, Priyanka Bhutani², Neha Verma³* and Sarthak Marwah¹

¹The NorthCap University, Gurugram, India
²University School of Information, Communication and Technology (USIC and T), Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University (GGSIPU), India
³VIPS (Member of CSD), Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University (GGSIPU), India

*Corresponding Author: Neha Verma, VIPS (Member of CSD), Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University (GGSIPU), India.

Received: August 14, 2023; Published: August 22, 2023

Abstract

As technology advances and cybersecurity measures become more sophisticated, cybercriminals are increasingly turning to social engineering tactics to gain access to sensitive information or systems. Social engineering refers to the tactic of taking advantage of human weaknesses to accomplish harmful goals, which may involve deceiving people into revealing sensitive information or breaching security measures. This approach has proven to be highly effective and is responsible for a significant portion of cyber-attacks. Unfortunately, many victims are unaware that they are being manipulated and may inadvertently sabotage the system themselves. Social engineering refers to a variety of malicious tactics that rely on human interactions to deceive and manipulate individuals into divulging confidential information or committing security breaches. Such attacks usually occur in multiple stages, starting with the perpetrator conducting research on the target to identify vulnerabilities and weaknesses in their security protocols. The attacker then gains the victim's trust by using various psychological tactics and provides incentives to encourage actions that compromise security, such as revealing sensitive data or granting unauthorized access to critical resources. It offers a formal and clear knowledge schema to comprehend, examine, reuse, and exchange social engineering domain knowledge. Cyber attackers use social engineering tactics to manipulate individuals to divulge sensitive information or to perform actions that may compromise a system's security. Throughout this paper, we explore various forms, strategies, and consequences of social engineering, which in turn supports Sustainable Development Goals (SDG-9). The paper also examines the effectiveness of different countermeasures and strategies for preventing social engineering attacks. By analyzing the latest research and real-world examples, this paper aims to increase awareness and understanding of social engineering, and help individuals and organizations better protect themselves from this growing threat.

Keywords: Social Engineering; Cyber- Attack; Cyber Security; Phishing; Baiting

References

1. Ahmed R and Dharaskar RV. “Mobile forensics: an overview, tools, future trends and challenges from law enforcement perspective”. In 6^th International Conference on E-Governance, Iceg, Emerging Technologies in E-Government, M-Government(2008): 312-323.
2. Raheja S and Munjal G. “Classification of Microsoft Office Vulnerabilities: A Step Ahead for Secure Software Development”. In: Bhoi, A., Mallick, P., Liu, CM., Balas, V. (eds) Bio-inspired Neurocomputing. Studies in Computational Intelligence. Springer, Singapore 903 (2021).
3. Wang Z., et al. “Social engineering in cybersecurity: Effect mechanisms, human vulnerabilities and attack methods”. IEEE Access 9(2021): 11895-11910.
4. Lohani S. “Social engineering: Hacking into humans”. International Journal of Advanced Studies of Scientific Research1 (2019).
5. Wang Z., et al.“Social engineering in cybersecurity: a domain ontology and knowledge graph application examples”. Cybersecur 4 (2021): 31.
6. Breda F., et al.“Social engineering and cyber security”. In INTED2017 Proceedings (2017): 4204-4211.
7. Wenke Lee and Bo Rotoloni. “Emerging cyber threats, trends and technologies”. Technical report, Institute for Information Security and Privacy (2016).
8. Social-engineer toolkit” (2022).
9. Kali Linux (2022).
10. “Social engineering: The art of human hacking, Wiley (2011).

Citation

Citation: Neha Verma., et al. “Social Engineering as A Tool for Cyber-Attacks". Acta Scientific Computer Sciences 5.9 (2023): 26-27.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2023 Neha Verma., et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.