One day, in an afternoon, when you are relaxing in your home, you get a call from HSBC and they tell you they are rechecking credit cards. “Could you please tell me, your credit card number?”. Just without thinking much, most probably what you’ll do is tell it. And your personal details, etc. So, next month when the bill comes, you know someone has illegally used your credit card.
Basically, that’s social engineering; Gathering information by talking to the people. This is easier than hacking, and probably more effective. Because in a computer system, system admin can patch the vulnerable products but there is no patch for human stupidity.
Just wanted to tell you, “Beware of Social Engineers”.
#1 by Janantha on May 3rd, 2006
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Social Engineering is the hardest technique of hacking to prevent. Lot of major company’s in USA had suffered from this. Basically it is a type of masquerading attack not by a computer but by a human being. Best prevention is to verify the authenticity of the person by at least two-three levels before giving out info.
e.g.
ID number
Photocard
Passport or something that really proves who the person is. Im sure this sort of technique is not far away from happening in sri lanka as well.. Our people would give anything to an outside caller who is pretending to be the boss of the company . This was the case in most cases!
So the next time someone asks for CC besure who he is or simply DONT give out the number over the phone. it is insecure anyways..unless you use an end to end encrypted audio link such skype!
#2 by jill on August 6th, 2007
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hello i am mr jones and i want to hack any body this time so thanks
#3 by Faisal on September 14th, 2007
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i need a help for basics bc i wanna do something in the world.