What is Social Engineering?
Social engineering is the act of manipulating people into performing actions or divulging confidential information, rather than by breaking in or using technical cracking techniques.[1] While similar to a confidence trick or simple fraud, the term typically applies to trickery or deception for the purpose of information gathering, fraud, or computer system access; in most cases the attacker never comes face-to-face with the victim."Social engineering" as an act of psychological manipulation was popularized by hacker-turned-consultant Kevin Mitnick. The term had previously been associated with the social sciences, but its usage has caught on among computer professionals.
Example 1: You receive an e-mail where the sender and the manager or someone on behalf of the support department of your bank.
In the message he says that the Internet Banking service is presenting a problem and that this problem can be corrected if you run the application attached to this message.
The implementation of this application presents a screen similar the one you use to access bank account, waiting for you to type your password. In fact, this application is prepared to steal your password to access the bank account and sends it to the attacker.
