What Does This Mean?
In information security, the use of psychological pressure or deception to influence people into taking actions or revealing confidential information; a form of confidence trick, often one step of a larger scheme.
EXPLAINER
Cyber and Tech Explained · original source ↗
EXPLAINER
Joshua Moses | Cybertrace Foundation · original source ↗
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REAL-WORLD EXAMPLE
""The security training opened with a talk on how social engineering targets people, not software.""
LORE & ORIGIN
Wikipedia describes it as exploiting weaknesses in human decision-making and notes phishing as one type; its early examples include Kevin Mitnick, Susan Headley and Lewis De Payne combining phreaking, hacking and social engineering in Los Angeles in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Described here for awareness only.
MENTIONS OVER TIME
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