31266 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Identity Theft, Dumpster Diving
Document Summary
In a social engineering attack, the perpetrator uses social skills to trick or manipulate a legitimate employee into providing confidential company information such as passwords. The most common example of social engineering occurs when the attacker impersonates someone else on the telephone, such as a company manager or information systems employee. The attacker claims to have forgotten the password and asks the legitimate employee to provide a password to use. Other common exploits include posing as an exterminator, an air conditioning technician, or a fireman. Identity theft is the deliberate assumption of another person"s identity, usually to gain access to his or her financial information or to frame him or her for a crime. Techniques for obtaining information include the following: stealing mail or dumpster diving stealing personal information in computer databases infiltrating organisations that store large amounts of personal information (impersonating a trusted organisation in an electronic communication (phishing).
