Articles on Social Engineering

• Social Engineering Allowing Gullible Victims to Self-Select in Online Attacks
  Blatantly fraudulent scam emails may be intentional—by appearing obviously fake, they filter out savvy people who would waste the scammer's time, ensuring only the most gullible victims self-select....
• Malware How Malicious Code Can Run in Microsoft Office Documents
  Microsoft Office documents can execute malicious code through VBA macros (requiring social engineering to enable), exploit payloads targeting Office vulnerabilities, embedded Flash objects, or...
• Communication Slides for Presentation on Real-World Social Engineering Attacks
• Social Engineering An Example of SMS Text Phishing
  SMS phishing ('smishing') messages impersonate carriers like Verizon to direct victims to credential-harvesting websites using spoofed sender numbers and lookalike domains. Mobile users are...
• Social Engineering The Need for Ethics When Researching Social Engineering
  Studying social engineering helps strengthen defenses against persuasion-based attacks, but research must be conducted ethically. The term "con artist" glorifies fraud; social engineering without...
• Social Networking The Use of Fake or Fraudulent LinkedIn Profiles
  Fake LinkedIn profiles have been used in targeted attacks to establish contact with employees and in bank guarantee scams. Security researchers like Thomas Ryan demonstrated how easily fictitious...