The definition of Social engineering has a link to malicious activities, achieved via studying human interactions and using them to their advantage. The intruders tend to manipulate users psychologically and use them to their advantage. They try to gather sensitive user details and use them to engineer attacks. Social engineering attacks are dependent on the information that the hacker gets off the user on the internet.
Different social engineering attacks rely on human psychology and ways to manipulate human emotion. For example, an average human can sway to emotions like greed, fear, and curiosity, which force them to make wrong decisions.
Social engineering toolkits may vary, but they depend on manipulating users’ emotions, such as phishing. For example, a social engineering attempt in the crypto space aims to access people’s private keys or details and drain their crypto holdings.
Tailgating attack
Tailgating attack is a typical social engineering process where hackers access password-protected areas followed by authorized people to that area. Once an employee enters an off-limit physical space, the intruder can sneak in after them. A common problem is when an organization has many employees and multiple physical entry points; workers move from one area to the other for meetings.
Phishing
Attackers use phishing emails to gather information about their victims. Usually, emails take the form of communication from a genuine organization. Let’s say that an attacker wants to access private keys or the seed phrases of a wallet; they might send an email claiming to be the support team of Trust wallet or Metamask, asking the unsuspecting victim to input their seed phrases. If they do that, the unscrupulous element steals the private information.
How do you protect yourself from social engineering attacks?
A crypto enthusiast can protect themselves by reading up about it, such as security principles to follow, while also
- Installing an antivirus on all computing devices
- Checking the email attachments and avoiding clicking on them
- Lastly, the user can use the 2FA security system
