Social engineering is manipulating people into taking actions or revealing confidential information. It has been used for over 100 years by con artists known as social engineers. Popular social engineers from the 20th century included Victor Lustig, who sold the Eiffel Tower multiple times, and Frank Abagnale Jr., who impersonated professionals like pilots and lawyers. More recently, Kevin Mitnick used social engineering to gain unauthorized access to computer networks in the 1990s. Social engineering works by gathering information about targets, developing trust with them, then exploiting that trust to obtain information or actions. It is accomplished using techniques like phone calls, online chatting, looking through trash, and shoulder surfing. Organizations can help prevent social engineering by establishing frameworks for

3. What is Social Engineering
“The act of manipulating people into performing
actions or divulging confidential information..”
Wikipedia (also sourced on social-engineer.org)

4. Origin of “Social Engineering”
 Social Engineering this word came in the year of 1894 by a
Dutch guy.
 Social Engineering is there 100 years ago also.
 The person who do Social Engineering we call as Conn
Artists

5. Some Popular Conn Artists in 20th Century

6. Victor Lustig
 The person who sold the Eiffel Tower number of times.
 Used current events.
 He made a deal with Scrap Dealers, selling the structure
to them for $40,000.
 An extremely good deal for buyers – too good to be true

7. Hotel Ritz

8. Social Engineering 40-50 years ago

9. Frank Abagnale Jr

10. Frank Abagnale Jr
 Fake pilot arrested in cockpit.
 He acted as a Lawyer, Doctor and pilot.
 Abagnale‟s cons were often check frauds.
 Did it will work today ?

11. Social Engineering in 20th Century

12. Kevin Mitnick
 20 years ago person named “Kevin Mitnick” brought social
engineering in IT security.
 He is an American Security Consultant, author, convicted
criminal and Hacker.
 According to US department of justice, Kevin gained
unauthorized access to dozens of computer networks.

13. Weakest Link
 People are the largest vulnerabilities in any network
 Social engineering is based on decision making of human
being

14. Motivation
 There are variety of motivations exists which includes,
 Financial Gain
 Self-Interest
 Revenge
 External Pressure

15. Cycle of Events
 It consists of 4 phases
 Information Gathering
 Developing Relationship
 Execution
 Exploitation

16. Information Gathering
“If you know the enemy and know yourself you
need not fear the results of a hundred battles”
-Sun Tzu

17. Cycle of Events
 Information Gathering
 A Variety of techniques can be used by an aggressor to
gather information about the target(s). Once gathered,
this information can then be used to build a relationship
with either the target or someone important to the success
of the attack.
 Developing Relationship
 An aggressor may freely exploit the willingness of a
target to be trusting in order to develop rapport with
them. While developing this relationship, the aggressor
will position himself into a position of trust which he will
then exploit

18. Cycle of Events
 Exploitation
 The target may then be manipulated by the „trusted‟
aggressor to reveal information (e.g. passwords) or
perform an action (e.g. creating an account or reversing
telephone charges) that would not normally occur. This
action could be the end of the attack or the beginning of
the next stage.
 Execution
 Once the target has completed the task requested by the
aggressor, the cycle is complete.

19. How Social Engineering is accomplished
 Telephone
 Online
 Dumpster Diving
 Shoulder Surfing
 Reverse Social Engineering
 Persuasion

20. How Social Engineering is accomplished
 Telephone
 Using telephones to contact individuals of a company to
persuade them to divulge in confidential information.
 Online
 Persuading or gathering information through the use of
an online chat.
 Dumpster Diving
 Looking for information discarded by a company
employees.

21. How Social Engineering is accomplished
 Shoulder Surfing
 Simply looking over someone‟s shoulder while they are using a
computer.
 Reverse Social Engineering
 This is a more advanced method of social engineering and is
almost always successful.
 Persuasion
 Persuading someone to give your confidential information
either by convincing them you are someone who can be
trusted.

22. Biases
 Biases are nothing but the deviations from a standard of
rationality or good judgments.
 There are many types of biasing, but these five are
important ones:
 Pretexting
 Phishing
 IVR or Phone Phishing
 Baiting
 Tailgating

23. Preventive Measures
 Organizations must, on an employee/personnel level,
establish frameworks of trust. (i.e.,
When/Where/Why/How should sensitive information be
handled?)
 Organizations must identify which information is sensitive
and question its integrity in all forms. (i.e., Social
Engineering, Building Security, Computer Security, etc.)
 Organizations must establish security protocols for the
people who handle sensitive information. (i.e., Paper-Trails
for information disclosure and/or forensic crumbs)