Social Engineering Testing

Information Security Service

Social Engineering Methods & Strategies

Social engineering involves obtaining information deceitfully, often by building inappropriate trust with individuals. This can lead to attempts like gaining entry through false pretexts, known as penetration. These attacks, dispersed or direct, aim to gather sensitive data.

Dispersed attacks involve posing as various personas to collect information over time. Directed attacks focus on specific individuals with valuable access, often using established trust to obtain data.

Dispersed attacks involve posing as various personas to collect information over time. Directed attacks focus on specific individuals with valuable access, often using established trust to obtain data.

Attackers meticulously study organizations, learning their structure and language. They exploit weaknesses, like poor internet use, social media disclosures, or freely available organizational data. This method involves acquiring information, building false relationships, and exploiting vulnerabilities for access.

Take advantage of an employee’s poor use of the internet to introduce malware.

Use information unwittingly provided by individuals on the internet, particularly on social media.

Exploit freely available useful information on organizational websites, such as details on security, personnel, and physical access.

Acquiring Information (Company website, Social media, Surveillance, Exploiting the natural tendency of people to assist others, Email)

Establishing a relationship (Making a connection, Building a relationship on a false pretext)

Exploitation (Manipulation of others, Exploiting personal vulnerabilities or weaknesses in organizational security).

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Information gathering

A critical phase and often determines the success of the rest of the social engineering campaign. Even when basic information is provided, such as names and emails, more in-depth research on the organization and its departments can be critical to the success of social engineering.

Design pretext scenarios

During this phase, after client and employee enumeration, Pretext scenarios are defined and implemented to falsely impersonate authority resulting in the target trusting and disclosing sensitive information. This information can then be used for malicious attacks. Specific emails are designed to lour targets in the opening, clicking links, responding, or downloading attachments.

Engagement

Using the designed pretexting scenarios, we engage with the target audience to assess their security awareness, actions taken, and information disclosed. Depending on the outcome, additional pretexting can be tailored to obtain sensitive information and trust further.

Reporting

After the assessment and aggregating test results, a social engineering report is provided, outlining both an executive summary and detailed findings. Remediation and training guides are also provided in resolving the issues identified. Once the report has been reviewed, a debrief meeting can be scheduled, allowing a walkthrough of the details and answering any questions.

Security Awareness Training

This is an optional phase of the social engineering assessment, which can be specifically tailored to address both findings and in general cybersecurity and in-house security policy and procedures.

Security Awareness Training will empower staff and understanding of the various attack strategies used by hackers to gain access or sensitive information. We can assist you in developing and implementing best practice behavior for protecting cardholder data. Technology can go so far, people and their behavior are essential in Gaming Systems Security.