About Social Engineering (09-12-06)

The art and science of getting people to comply to your wishes, often through clever manipulation of the natural human tendency to trust.

Kevin Mitnick, renowned and reformed hacker, in his book The Art of Deception explains that people inherently want to be helpful and therefore are easily duped. They assume a level of trust in order to avoid conflict. Kevin Mitnick's exploits as a cyber-desperado and fugitive from one of the most exhaustive FBI manhunts in history have spawned dozens of articles, books, films and documentaries. Since his release from federal prison in 2000, Mitnick has turned his life around and established himself as one of the most sought-after computer security experts worldwide.

According to Kevin Mitnick, all of the firewalls and encryption in the world will never stop a gifted social engineer from rifling a corporate database. If an attacker wants to break into a system, the most effective approach is to try to exploit the weakest link -- not operating systems, firewalls or encryption algorithms -- but people.