Social engineering as a threat to information security

Sazonov Alexey Ivanovich, Vorobieva Irina Alekseevna

Social engineering is the psychological manipulation of people based on the use of flaws in human logic, known as cognitive biases, in order to obtain confidential information. Social engineering (SI) has become a serious threat in virtual communities and is an effective means to attack information systems. SI is a potential threat to information security and should be considered on a par with its technological counterparts. However, much attention is paid to the implementation of technical security through antivirus, intrusion detection systems (IDS), intrusion prevention systems (IPS), firewalls, etc., completely ignoring the non-technical behavior. Since there is no hardware or software to protect an enterprise or individual from social engineering, it is essential to implement good practices.

Keywords:information security, social engineering, social hacker, confidential information.