Social Engineering

Social Engineering: what is it and how did it come about?
It's easy to guess that even the most sophisticated security system is vulnerable when a person manages it, especially if this person is trusting, naive and psychologically unstable. And when an attack occurs on the machine (PC), not only the computer, but also the person who is behind it can act as a victim.

It is such an attack on the slang of social hackers called social engineering. In the traditional form it looks like a phone call, where the caller impersonates someone else, wanting to get the subscriber confidential information, most often - passwords.

In a certain form, people have used social engineering since ancient times. For example, highly respected riders were able to convince the interlocutor of his "wrong". These people participated in diplomatic negotiations and solved state problems. Later, social engineering was adopted by special services, such as the CIA and the KGB, whose agents successfully committed themselves to anyone and uncovered state secrets.

By the beginning of the 1970s, telephone hooligans began to appear, disturbing the peace of various companies for the sake of joking. But over time, someone realized that if you use a technical approach, you can easily get different important information. And by the end of the 70s, former telephone hooligans had turned into professional social engineers (they were called synergists), capable of masterfully manipulating people, by their intonation alone, determining their complexes and fears.