Social Engineering is a technique to trick an individual or an organization and perform a cyberattack and achieve their motives. It is a technique to perform a cyberattack not exactly a cyberattack.
Attackers are becoming smart day by day and opt for tricky and smart ways to pull out sensitive information like bank account details, account details in a convincing manner. An attacker first does great homework about you and then use that information to gain your trust.
They act as trustable entities with whom you can share your information and once, they get what they needed, all the intended harm is caused.
Let’s understand this through a scenario.
Sam purchased an online subscription for a grocery service, now that service was not as good as he expected and now, he wants a refund. He spoke to the executive and they clearly refused.
Next day Sam got a call that they are calling from the accounts team and are ready to give a refund.
They sounded quite convincing and trust worthy. Sam fell for this call and ended up sharing his account details and lost all his money.
These kinds of attacks are basically psychological manipulation of the victim and can lead to huge losses to any individual or any enterprise.
