Essays on Social Engineering

Social Engineering is the art of deceiving or manipulating a person to engage in an activity which may or may not be in the best interest of that person. Social engineering encompasses activities such as obtaining the information of someone else deceitfully, gaining access to the computers of other people without their consent and getting a person to fraudulently engage in activities which they could not have engaged in ordinarily (Hagnagy 9-10). Further, social engineering does not consist of merely one action. On the contrary, social engineering entails a multiplicity of skills fitted into a particular framework which when ...

Part A

Foot printing is very important in the process of information gathering for hackers given that is present them with the vital information about the target. Hacking is a complicated process that requires massive information gathering and understanding before an attack can be successful. As a consequence, foot printing is considered a significant part of the hacking process (Boyd, 2000). There are several ways through which hacker gain access to massive information about the target at the foot printing stage. The greatest source of information at the foot printing stage include: the target organization’s website, company directory, job boards, ...

Information System Security Plan for a Bank

Executive Summary The information security plan applies to AmeriBank, its auxiliaries, employees, information, system, processes, data, and networks collectively referred to as the Bank. AmeriBank is committed to protecting critical assets and securing information to ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability (CIA) of the information, preventing damage to the network and systems that are vital to the bank’s business to ensure business continuity, and minimize risk to the businesses. This is achieved by implementing administrative, technical, and physical controls such as information security policies, software, and hardware controls, which have to be implemented, monitored, and improved upon to ...

Introduction

If an employee with access to sensitive information was terminated, then the employee is considered as an insider threat. These insiders can cause three types of threats to an organization: Sabotage, Fraud, or theft of intellectual property (IP) or data using Information Technology (IT). IT sabotage uses IT to harm the critical assets of the organization. IT can be used to steal data or IP or also for espionage by insiders. Using IT to tamper data, addition, or deletion of data for personal gain or to perform an identity crime can be considered IT fraud.

Hacker’s Targets

In the present scenario, ...

ANSWER TO QUESTION 1

Introduction Biotechnology is an innovative field where biological processes are applied for the provision of genetic manipulation for microorganisms for the production and commercialisation of antibiotics and hormones amongst others. Biotechnology is a process whereby scientists use various aspects of technology to modify genes and microorganisms of living things in order to attain specific goals in the organism in which it is done. The preliminary elements of this course has shown that biotechnology is carried out in both applied and pure research. In applied research, biotechnology is used for the provision of various solutions like medicines, treatment for incurable ...

Business:

Introduction Leadership Foundation has been profitable, from the formation time in 2008, all the profits have been reinvested back to the organization. However, how to secure long-term and sustainable funding is a very important issue to be considered so as to ensure the sustainability of the organization in future. Being a social engineering organization, the organization can initiate some strategies to attract long-term sustainable funding by engaging in alternative projects to sustain the foundation. By adopting all these new strategies, the Leadership Foundation shall focus on leading the way to diversify their programs so as to serve concerned individuals, ...

There are many manners in which to be a hero; not all of them include donning a cape and fighting evildoers. Some heroes are more intellectual in nature, and all they need to change society’s wrongs is words, be it through pen and paper or by talking. The latter kind is usually not as well-known as the former, yet they have also influenced history in very important ways. One way of bringing society’s ills to light is through satire, of which there have been many master’s throughout the years. This genre ridicules the subject, using irony, ...

The DBIR 2015 is the ninth one from Verizon, and similar to the others, it highlights patterns and trends present in an aggregated incident data set. The report begins by emphasizing that there are few unique breaches in the cyber-world, and that the likelihood that an intrusion mechanism has been applied previously is relatively high. Furtherance, the DBIR informs against the presumption that victims of data breach believe they are in isolation; it is this falsehood that impedes on information sharing on attack patterns, which could collectively help prevent future intrusions. Verizon has managed to develop a classification for ...

In 2014, JP Morgan Chase Bank experienced a data breach whereby 83 million customer accounts were compromised in what was deemed as the largest data breach in America. The hack affected 76 million American households, which were approximated to be 67 percent of the total households in America. The attack, announced in the month of September, was uncovered by the bank’s cyber security team in July 2014, but was not contained till mid-August. The hackers stole customers’ names, postal addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses. It was reported that other personal information such as login details, social security ...

[Class Title]

The main point of this essay is that even if smartphones have many desirable and positive qualities, it also has negative qualities that can harm its users. Smartphones, for instance, significantly changed how people exchange information and communicate with each other. These technologies have influenced their social and personal life, including their work, education and personal relationships. The prevalence of smartphones is phenomenal. Statistics have shown that almost all people in the United States have smartphones and that almost 70% of these people access the internet through their cell phones for work, personal and recreational purposes. But ...

Social Engineering Concepts and Examples with Prevention Methods

Social engineering is one of the most critical aspects of cybersecurity since many attacks are arising from it rather than the traditional technical hackings. It is easy to manipulate people directly than to crack systems, thus makes social engineering the most used method of social attacks with an ever changing landscape in terms of methods of resolving it. This paper discusses two examples of social engineering and compares it to social engineering attacks view by two authors under reference and methods that could have prevented the attacks.

Examples and context of social engineering

The first example of security breaches caused by social engineering is stealing ...

Introduction

This chapter gives an analysis of the results of the study to derive insights on why insider threats remains to be one of the leading and challenging security issues to deal with. The results of the study present a vague picture of what motivates insider threats in private organizations. The questions of why, what and how will be answered with references to the data obtained from the study. This section also demonstrates the actions taken by organizations and tries to link it with theoretical frameworks and pool of knowledge developed by earlier scholars.

Analysis

The belief that insider threats ...

The creation of modern technologies enabled people to experience a luxurious life compared to the past century. However, through the use of the new technology, criminals can easily penetrate through the protective security and steal one’s identity with a single click of the mouse button. As amended by the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) of the United States, all American telecommunication companies must implement strict policies in securing the collected data of their customers to avoid identity theft. Identity theft as the majority knows it is the stealing of one’s information either through the ...

1. List the five steps of the hacking process.

Answer: The five steps of the hacking process are: Reconnaissance, Scanning, Gaining Access, Maintaining Access and Covering Tracks.

2. To exploit or attack the targeted systems, what can you do as an initial first step to collect as much information as possible about the targets prior to devising an attack and penetration test plan?

Answer: To collect as much information as possible, we must follow the first phase of hacking, that is, the Reconnaissance. Sources like Internet searches, Social engineering, Dumpster diving, and Non-intrusive external or internal network scanning are ...

Democracy ensured the inevitability of the ruler’s insecurity. Though democracy has always been under unrelenting attack by individuals’ interest, economic and politics, the true meaning of democracy was to take power to the masses and in the process devolve the ability and theme ans from the elite. With their powers and control under threat, the elite hand to find a way to reclaim control and ensure that their opinion not only matters to the public but is also it is what becomes the consensus of the masses. Through formal education, technological advancement in recent history, mass media and activism ...

Effective delivery of services today relies on speed and efficiency. Many organizations have embraced the use of Information Communication Technology to achieve efficacy in their service deliveries. State Board of Education has not lagged behind in service delivery through ICT . In a bid to offer excellent services to its stakeholders, the state organ has integrated its system to support automated service delivery. The board enjoys a higher rate of passing information and processing data. In addition, it stores its information in database systems that allow for easy updates, data retrieval and manipulation. However, there are several drawbacks associated with electronic services ( ...

Introduction

Software information systems are vulnerable to many threats. These security threats can be caused by various reasons such as natural disasters, technical failures, unintentional acts such as negligence of the users, deliberate acts and management failures. These threats can have serious financial and privacy issues in the information system especially in a health care setting. Furthermore, the data of the patients can becomes mixed up due to the security issues. Additionally, computer viruses that affect the health care information systems are one of the most common forms of security threats that the information systems face.

Information security policies form the ...

Introduction

Security is a significant component that need to be integrated in any organization. It is important to have an assessment of vulnerabilities so that the solutions can be sought and implemented in a better way. With the popularity of the internet and computer systems use, there has been the rise of insecurity issues in many organizations which has called for the need to have measures to ensure vulnerabilities are sealed. This paper will focus on security of Amazon Company and will look at how the security posture of the company will be done and solved.

Foot printing information about Amazon

Amazon is a company that has established ...

Abstract

The ethical and privacy implications of biometrics usage is a concern for individuals, companies, and almost anyone with an awareness of the concept of Protecting Personal Information (PPI). Although the present research paper article addresses biometrics as a whole, it briefly explains an ethics definition, before delving more deeply into the topic. This paper additionally discusses an overview of General IT behavior, serving as a segue into the larger discussion of biometrics. Several journal article, and peer-reviewed references help to round out the guidelines for understanding a wide range of biometric implications, environmental authentication climate, and privacy risks examples using electronic health records, ...

Online identity theft

Online identity theft occurs when an unauthorized party acquires personal identifying data about someone such as credit card or bank account information through the internet and uses such information to commit fraud or other criminal activities. Factors that promotes online identity theft can be political, economic, social or technological in nature (Hedayati, 2012). Political factors include instability and civil wars that cause massive illegal immigration to other countries where immigrants steal identities in order to secure employment. Economic factors include unemployment and poverty that force people to engage in criminal acts. Social factors include the uninhibited communication within social ...

(Author’s Full Name)

Within the ambit of information systems security, Social Engineering refers to the act of manipulating individuals to give up or leak confidential information. It usually involves tricking people (through human interaction) to break into regular security SOPs. Social engineering has become the most widely used and easiest techniques for attacking an information system as it relies on the victim’s innate ability to trust people and naturally, be helpful towards them. Social Engineering is divided into two broad categories: Human-based and Computer-based. The former involves face-to-face interactions with the victim to retrieve the intended ...

Question 1

Social engineering can be defined as the non-technical way in which intrusion to information systems can be broken into with the use of human interaction and tricks that are more of social than technical. Social engineering is a common means in which virus developers will try to break into a system. Social engineering will try to trick the computer user to give some information that will give a hint to the social engineer to break into the system. The social engineer will try to play what is referred to as a con game which is a way in which they will gain the ...

Security strategies on an organization are based on establishing the best user authentication policies. Organizations choose what they deem to best work for them in addition to reducing the cost of managing authentication credentials. Normally three different strategies have been used world over to determine the authentication policies implemented in organizations. These include:

The right tool for the job

One for all strategy Common platform authentication methods In order to protect the security of the organization, the following user authentication policies were deemed necessary. Network access Password management An information security policy defines a set of instructions and guidelines defining the ...

Business Process Management

Abstract The literature review on the topic of enterprise resource planning (ERP) of business process management (BPM) as part of information systems (IS) strategies in South African businesses covers both scholarly and professional management discussions about outsource administration of IT systems operations. The rise of outsource IT in the business sector is predicted to realign business and trade into the future. The trend in emergent market outsource IS data management in and by South African firms is fast becoming a lead topic in a nation formerly characterised as an industrial economy with developing country challenges. The enactment of South ...

Internet security

The internet offers us good things and through it we can achieve a lot of things. Organizations are able to contract suppliers and distributers online. Online payments and ordering of products in one of the major benefit that internet has offered to business community. Initially, internet was reserved for the technological persons. The internet used to be a limitless source of information for few individuals. There has been rapid growth of internet connectivity not only in businesses but also in homesteads. Many users both in developed and developing world are able to access internet through the small devices such as mobile ...

Social engineering is an attack to the information system by obtaining access in a manipulation manner where the attacker uses tricks to get authorization details. There are several methods of social engineering such as website spoofing and phishing. Many organizations have realized the importance of information security. They have associated information security to business profits in an organization. Different measures such as testing for attacks from the hackers. Companies have failed to realize that disregard of security policy by employees can cost the company. Other employees just disregard the security policies to offend or ‘punish’ the employer. Other employees in ...

Cyber insecurity is where a computer is in a position to be exposed to vulnerable attacks which aims at causing various malfunctions. This causes a strong battle to emerge between the individuals responsible for the vulnerabilities and the ones in charge of ensuring there is maximum computer security. Despite different departments fighting to ensure that there is maximum security, various cyber criminals stills sneaks in to cause insecurity. The reality of cyber insecurity will always present itself with malware infections, password sniffing, computer hacking, and web site damages. Computer crime has interfered with the smooth running of various activities since cyber criminals has ...

Introduction to Philosophy

Some scientists and philosophers, without some of the theories proposed by John Locke, the later developments by Marx would have been non-existent. According to the liberal view, the state has a minimal role in directing the society and economic affairs. Classical liberalism favors a minimal state that only provides basic societal needs such as enforcing contracts, defense, and protection of property. On the contrary, social liberals recognize even more roles of the state, especially in the economic front. For instance, according to these social liberals, the state regulates capitalism as a measure of consumer and employee protection. It also provides welfare programs ...

Article 1

What is the ethical Issue? This article was published by Alan W. Dowd in the December 2011 issue of The American Legion Magazine. The article relates to the growing interest among various countries such as the US, Russia, Canada, Sweden and the Nordic countries in the Arctic region. For all these countries the driving factor is the energy reserves in terms of oil and gas found in the Arctic region. Other factors which make it attractive for countries to wish to control the Arctic region include security and shipping economics because the Northwest Passage in the Arctic can ...

Introduction

Bullying has been in existence long before the internet but has become severe with the emergence of the internet. Bullying used to be experienced when one was away from home or from parents, but presently it follows people up to the comfort of their bedroom. Online bullying, technologically known as online bullying is a staid predicament that leaves its victims hopeless and helpless. Online bullying is any aggravation that takes place online. This can be a comment made on the wall of one’s Facebook or any other social media account, nasty name calling on chat rooms and video conferences and ...

Research Question

What are the effects of the internet and social networks on Cyber bullying and to what extent has Cyber bullying been experienced among the youths?

Thesis Statement

Bullying is not a new terminology, and especially among the youths. It is a vice that has been in existence for long but one that is manifesting itself on new platforms with the advancement in technology. Some forms of bullying like nicknaming and stereotyping have stood ignored by adults; however, reality reveals that though mere, such bullying is as phoney as the physical bullying. It is never clear where third parties like parents or even legal ...

Internet fraud refers to a white-collar crime that as grown with the advent of the internet technology. For clarity purposes, we take the definition of the United States Department of Justice that defines Internet Fraud as “any fraud committed through the use of computer programs, internet related communication, or website trades ” (Del Armstrong and John Simonson, 2012). The consumer Internet Fraud Watch reports that the number of internet fraud incidences increased from 1152 in 1997 to 7500 in 1998. The United States Security Commission has reported that there are close to 300 cases of internet fraud daily ( Cyscope, 1998). There ...

Social engineering and how it affects the IT industry

Introduction Internet fraud or cyber crime is on the rise. In the past few years the main media of fraud was thought to be only the internet, where criminals used sophisticated software or perpetrate attacks and gain un-authorized access to personal or company’s data. The same fear is still at large but, lately a lot of concern has shifted to social engineering. Social engineering can be perpetrated by use of technology or by use of non technology elements. Still social engineering is a major crime of concern to all stake holders whether in the IT industry or not. ...

Introduction

Invading the privacy of businesses, institutions, and people, social engineering creates criminal acts using telephones, illegally accessing private information via computer accounts called "hacking", stealing bank account information, as well as eavesdropping are social engineering crimes. Two types of social engineering exist, including, human and technological based (Peltier, 2010). Social engineering uses deception, manipulating people into giving them personal information including social security and bank account numbers (Halles, 2008). Social engineers use tactics to extract private information including appealing to people's vanity, authority, look, over peoples' shoulders while entering pin numbers, and eaves drop. In his article, "Mitigating the ...