The Social Engineer

More and more often hackers are relying on exploiting the human aspect of security to gain access to their targets through social engineering type attacks (e.g., phone, phishing, in-person, etc.). With strong firewalls, intrusion detection/prevention systems, and tools like security incident and event management (SIEM), you are seeing an increase in attacks that are targeting …

Continue reading “The Importance of the Pretext”

“Emotions can override the more powerful fundamental motives that drive our lives: hunger, sex, and the will to survive.” – Paul Ekman Social engineers have to become masters at understanding, reading and influencing people. Depending on the information being communicated, a large portion of our communication will not be the words we say but the …

Continue reading “Micro Expressions”

Most human beings assess new situations and people for threat before anything else. Humans have genetically survived because of this. As humans, we are more likely to approach a stranger that we deem as non-threatening than one that we do not feel comfortable with. We are more comfortable around people that we can be ourselves …

Continue reading “Tribe Mentality”