so I have this asperger friend in my class at uni who keeps spamming me with this "social engineering" BS. after many links I finally took a look at one of the videos.
>Social engineering, in the context of information security, refers to psychological manipulation of people into performing actions or divulging confidential information. A type of confidence trick for the purpose of information gathering, fraud, or system access, it differs from a traditional "con" in that it is often one of many steps in a more complex fraud scheme. The term "social engineering" as an act of psychological manipulation of a human, is also associated with the social sciences, but its usage has caught-on among computer and information security professionals.
why the hell does everything nowadays have to be labeled as "hacking"? This crap is just basic psychology with some elements of game theory. so basically if you have a decent EQ you're already a human hacker.
what do you mean nowadays? the term social engineering has been around since the 80's and it was always an integral part of most of the oldschool hackers way of going about things, like kevin mitnick et al.
and at no point in the paragraph you linked to i see the term hacking
>>9169422
>EQ
dropped your post and your opinions here
>>9169422
Social engineering is very useful tool in trying to penetration test a company. So rather than having to spend ages trying to explore the organisations infrastructure (both technical and non-technical), you can simply convince someone, ask or find a password.
This also involves dressing the part in the organisation, using the correct verbal communication and ustilising other social things. Such as having your arms full as you walk up to a security checkpoint so they let you past (Obviously this doesn't always happen), as an example. Understanding peoples behavior in companies and also thinking about the ways in which you can manipulate people working there all add up to the "Engineering" part of it.
Social Engineering is usually a shortcut to achieve something else or to make the job as a penetration tester easier.
I suggest looking up some DEFCON talks about it rather than taking my word for it.