5Star CyberSecurity
Social Engineering

Social Engineering

What is Social Engineering

Social engineering is a cybersecurity attack.These attacks by cybercriminals use deception via social engagement to convince your team to provide them confidential information.

Our security experts act as cyber-criminals to approach each engagement to gain company information. To catch a cyber-criminal, you must think like a criminal. We start by threat modeling which identifies what information the criminal would need and what part of the network they would target to get it. Our security professionals then create a pretext (a scenario) to use in the execution of the "attack".5-Star Cybersecurity social engineering testing assesses your people, processes, and procedures via email phishing, telephone vishing, and onsite attempts to breach physical safeguards.

Social Engineering FAQs

What is phishing?

Scammers and cyber-criminals lure sensitive information and data from unsuspecting sources by disguising as a trustworthy source. Phishers use multiple platforms and ways to lure your information via email, phone, text messages, social media channels.

What is the goal of social engineering?

The goal of social engineering is to see how well employees will protect company information. Social engineering is the act of pretending or acting—social engineers their acting skills to develop a rapport to gain details and information.

How can businesses prevent phishing attacks?

Education is the best way for businesses to prevent phishing attacks. The best education is by conducting training programs with phishing scenarios that your employees can use in the real world to safeguard your company's sensitive data. SPAM filters and virus protections are another way to help prevent phishing attacks.

What is baiting?

Like in traditional fishing, baiting is luring an unsuspecting victim with an offer they cannot refuse. The offer is often based on fear, greed, and temptation to gain their sensitive data.

Benefits

Social engineering pen testing assesses employees' adaption and adherence to the security policies and practices you put into place. Our social engineering penetration testing service will provide you and your company with the deep truth about how easy it would be for an intruder to convince your employees to break security rules. When security rules are broken, it allows cyber-criminals access to sensitive information. The benefit is that you will know first-hand how successful your security training and procedures are working for your company.

As the CISO for your company, you have performed a security assessment and developed policies and procedures. Multiple training sessions have been conducted and communications sent regarding security controls, who to notify in case of a suspected scam, phishing email, or potential social engineering attack, procedures for identifying callers before sharing confidential information, and visitor procedures. But will team members follow those procedures in a real-world situation