All social engineering techniques are based on specific attributes of human decision-making known as cognitive biases. These biases, sometimes called “bugs in the human hardware”, are exploited in various combinations to create attack techniques, some of which are listed. The attacks used in social engineering can be used to steal employees’ confidential information. The most common type of social engineering happens over the phone. Other examples of social engineering attacks are criminals posing as exterminators, fire marshals and technicians to go unnoticed as they steal company secrets.
One example of social engineering is an individual who walks into a building and posts an official-looking announcement to the company bulletin that says the number for the help desk has changed. So, when employees call for help the individual asks them for their passwords and ID’s thereby gaining the ability to access the company’s private information. Social engineering can be broken into two common types of human or computer based.
Human-Based
It refers to person-to-person interaction to retrieve the desired information. An example is calling the help desk and trying to find out a password. It includes
- Impersonation— Te hacker pretends to be an employee or valid user on the system. A hacker can gain physical access by pretending to be a janitor, employee, or contractor.
- Posing as an important user—Te hacker pretends to be a VIP or high-level manager who has the authority to use computer systems or files. Most of the time, low-level employees don’t ask any questions of someone who appears in this position.
- Being a third party—Te hacker pretends to have permission from an authorized person to use the computer system. It works when the authorized person is unavailable for some time.
- Desktop support—Calling tech support for assistance is a classic social-engineering technique. Help desk and technical support personnel are trained to help users, which makes them good prey for social engineering attacks.
- Shoulder surfing—Shoulder surfing is the technique of gathering passwords by watching over a person’s shoulder while they log in to the system. A hacker can watch a valid user log in and then use that password to gain access to the system.
- Dumpster diving—Dumpster diving involves looking in the trash for information written on pieces of paper or computer printouts. The hacker can often find passwords, filenames, or other pieces of confidential information.
- Pretexting, also known in the UK as blagging or bohoing, is the act of creating and using an invented scenario (the pretext) to engage a targeted victim in a manner that increases the chance the victim will divulge information or perform actions that would be unlikely in ordinary circumstances. An elaborate lie, it most often involves some prior research or setup and the use of this information for impersonation (e.g., date of birth, Social Security number, last bill amount) to establish legitimacy in the mind of the target. This technique can be used to fool a business into disclosing customer information as well as by private investigators to obtain telephone records, utility records, banking records and other information directly from company service representatives. The information can then be used to establish even greater legitimacy under tougher questioning with a manager, e.g., to make account changes, get specific balances, etc. Pretexting can also be used to impersonate co-workers, police, bank, tax authorities, clergy, insurance investigators — or any other individual who could have perceived authority or right-to-know in the mind of the targeted victim. The pretexter must simply prepare answers to questions that might be asked by the victim. In some cases, all that is needed is a voice that sounds authoritative, an earnest tone, and an ability to think on one’s feet to create a pretextual scenario.
- Diversion theft, also known as the “Corner Game” or “Round the Corner Game”, originated in the East End of London. In summary, diversion theft is a “con” exercised by professional thieves, normally against a transport or courier company. The objective is to persuade the persons responsible for a legitimate delivery that the consignment is requested elsewhere — hence, “round the corner”.
- Tailgating – An attacker, seeking entry to a restricted area secured by unattended, electronic access control, e.g. by RFID card, simply walks in behind a person who has legitimate access. Following common courtesy, the legitimate person will usually hold the door open for the attacker or the attackers themselves may ask the employee to hold it open for them. The legitimate person may fail to ask for identification for any of several reasons, or may accept an assertion that the attacker has forgotten or lost the appropriate identity token. The attacker may also fake the action of presenting an identity token.
Computer-Based
It refers to having computer software that attempts to retrieve the desired information. An example is sending a user an email and asking them to reenter a password in a web page to confirm it. This social-engineering attack is also known as phishing. It includes
Phishing
Phishing is a technique of fraudulently obtaining private information. Typically, the phisher sends an e-mail that appears to come from a legitimate business—a bank, or credit card company—requesting “verification” of information and warning of some dire consequence if it is not provided. The e-mail usually contains a link to a fraudulent web page that seems legitimate—with company logos and content—and has a form requesting everything from a home address to an ATM card’s PIN. Phishing involves false emails, chats, or websites designed to impersonate real systems with the goal of capturing sensitive data.
For example, 2003 saw the proliferation of a phishing scam in which users received e-mails supposedly from eBay claiming that the user’s account was about to be suspended unless a link provided was clicked to update a credit card (information that the genuine eBay already had). Because it is relatively simple to make a Web site resemble a legitimate organization’s site by mimicking the HTML code, the scam counted on people being tricked into thinking they were being contacted by eBay and subsequently, were going to eBay’s site to update their account information. By spamming large groups of people, the “phisher” counted on the e-mail being read by a percentage of people who already had listed credit card numbers with eBay legitimately, who might respond.
IVR or phone phishing
Phone phishing (or “vishing”) uses a rogue interactive voice response (IVR) system to recreate a legitimate-sounding copy of a bank or other institution’s IVR system. The victim is prompted (typically via a phishing e-mail) to call in to the “bank” via a (ideally toll free) number provided in order to “verify” information. A typical system will reject log-ins continually, ensuring the victim enters PINs or passwords multiple times, often disclosing several different passwords. More advanced systems transfer the victim to the attacker posing as a customer service agent for further questioning.
On-line scams
Emails sent by scammers may have attachments that include malicious code inside the attachment. Those attachments can include keyloggers to capture users’ passwords, viruses, Trojans, or worms. Sometimes pop-up windows can also be used in social engineering attacks. Pop-up windows that advertise special offers may tempt users to unintentionally install malicious software.
Baiting
Baiting is like the real-world Trojan Horse that uses physical media and relies on the curiosity or greed of the victim. Baiting involves dangling something you want to entice you to take an action the criminal desires. It can be in the form of a music or movie download on a peer-to-peer site or it can be a USB flash drive with a company logo labeled “Executive Salary Summary Q1 2013″ left out in the open for you to find. Then, once the device is used or downloaded, the person or company’s computer is infected with malicious software allowing the criminal to advance into your system.
In this attack, the attacker leaves a malware infected floppy disk, CD-ROM, or USB flash drive in a location sure to be found (bathroom, elevator, sidewalk, parking lot), gives it a legitimate looking and curiosity-piquing label, and simply waits for the victim to use the device.
For example, an attacker might create a disk featuring a corporate logo, readily available from the target’s web site, and write “Executive Salary Summary Q2 2012” on the front. The attacker would then leave the disk on the floor of an elevator or somewhere in the lobby of the targeted company. An unknowing employee might find it and subsequently insert the disk into a computer to satisfy their curiosity, or a good samaritan might find it and turn it in to the company.
In either case, as a consequence of merely inserting the disk into a computer to see the contents, the user would unknowingly install malware on it, likely giving an attacker unfettered access to the victim’s PC and, perhaps, the targeted company’s internal computer network.
Unless computer controls block the infection, PCs set to “auto-run” inserted media may be compromised as soon as a rogue disk is inserted.
Hostile devices, more attractive than simple memory, can also be used. For instance, a “lucky winner” is sent a free digital audio player that actually compromises any computer it is plugged to.
URL Obfuscation
The URL (uniform resource locator) refers to the website address. URL obfuscation involves, hiding a fake URL in what appear to be a legitimate website address. For example, a website of 204.13.144.2/Citibank may appear to be a legitimate web address for Citibank but in fact is not. URL obfuscation is used in phishing attacks and some online scams to make the scam seem more legitimate. A website address may be seen as an actual financial institution name or logo, but the link leads to a fake website or IP address. When users click the link, they’re redirected to the hacker’s site. Addresses can be obfuscated in malicious links by the use of hexadecimal or decimal notations.
Other types
Common confidence tricksters or fraudsters also could be considered “social engineers” in the wider sense, in that they deliberately deceive and manipulate people, exploiting human weaknesses to obtain personal benefit. They may, for example, use social engineering techniques as part of an IT fraud.
A very recent type of social engineering technique includes spoofing or hacking IDs of people having popular e-mail IDs such as Yahoo!, Gmail, Hotmail, etc. Among the many motivations for deception are:
- Phishing credit-card account numbers and their passwords.
- Cracking private e-mails and chat histories, and manipulating them by using common editing techniques before using them to extort money and creating distrust among individuals.
- Cracking websites of companies or organizations and destroying their reputation.
- Computer virus hoaxes
- Convincing users to run malicious code within the web browser via self-XSS attack to allow access to their web account
Reverse Social Engineering
A reverse social engineering attack is a person-to-person attack in which an attacker convinces the target that he or she has a problem or might have a certain problem in the future and that he, the attacker, is ready to help solve the problem. Reverse social engineering is performed through the following steps:
- An attacker first damages the target’s equipment.
- He next advertises himself as a person of authority, ably skilled in solving that problem.
- In this step, he gains the trust of the target and obtains access to sensitive information.
If this reverse social engineering is performed well enough to convince the target, he often calls the attacker and asks for help.