Guide for Social Engineering: Importance, Functioning, and Exam Tips

Social Engineering: It refers to the manipulation technique that convinces people to give up their confidential data. It's majorly a psychological trick to induce humans into making security mistakes or revealing sensitive information. It's employed by hackers to gain illicit access to systems.

Importance: Social Engineering is vital to understand because it targets the weakest link in an organization's security infrastructure, which is 'humans'. Therefore, being aware and prepared can prevent most breaches that could take place.

How it works: It generally involves four steps: researching the target, developing a relationship and trust, exploiting the established trust to gain information or access, and finally, using the obtained data. The trick is manipulative, leveraging human psychology effectively.

Exam Tips - Answering Questions on Social Engineering: It is crucial to understand that social engineering questions focus on procedures, ways to mitigate risks, and employee training.
1. Understand the workings of different types of social engineering attacks like Phishing, Baiting, Pretexting, and Tailgating.
2. Look out for questions that involve scenarios. Examiners may give a situation and ask how an intruder was able to gain access - in many cases, the answer will involve some form of social engineering.
3. Remember, human error plays a significant role, so focus on the role of employees and the importance of training.