Social Engineering... a Kid's Game?

Social engineering describes a non-technical intrusion relying heavily on human interaction tricking other people to break normal security procedures. It is a psychological manipulation of people into performing actions or divulging confidential information. It is different from a traditional con because it is multiple steps in a more complex fraud scheme.

In essence, it's an elaborate lie that involves some research and the use of this information for impersonation to establish legitimacy in the mind of the target.

These technics are used to fooling a business into divulging customer information as well as private investigators to obtain telephone records, utility records, banking records and other information directly from company service representatives.

Phishing is a technic to also fraudulently obtain private information. They send out emails that appear to come from legitimate businesses such as a ban or credit card company requesting verification information and then warning of some dire consequence if that information is not provided. They even link to fraudulent websites that seem legitimate. They have company logos and even forms requesting everything from your home address to an ATM's PIN number.

Phone Phishing uses a rogue interactive voice response system to recreate a legitimate sounding copy of a bank or other institution's IVR system. The victim is prompted typically via a Phishing email to call the bank via an ideally toll free provided in order to verify information. Hence not traceable.

Of course there is also "baiting" which is like the World Trojan Horse that uses physical media and relies on the curiosity and greed of the victim.

The list goes on and on. It's con after con all designed to bilk monies from consumers and the institutions that serve them. Sadly, a great many of these "social engineers" are children. Most of them teenagers who have access to this information to produce these scams through the use of the World Wide Web.

Still I believe that it's much more diabolical than that. Information of almost any sort is available through our instantaneous electronic media but to execute these types of crimes generally takes a ringmaster...puppet master if you will. Someone on the other end of these 661 area code Skype calls directing these children, his or her minions to do their bidding. It's Oliver Twist in the 21st Century.

MJC