Adherence to security practices and employees' security awareness are evaluated by the social engineering testing platform. It imitates the techniques and approaches that are used by intruders to trick employees into providing sensitive business related information. Social engineering risks are identified and remediated to tackle social engineering attacks amicably. In this article, you will get a detailed overview of social engineering testing.
What are social engineering attacks?
Social engineering attacks cause loss of critical data, damage to systems, security breaches and other disruptive events. In a social engineering attack setup, third parties or employees are persuaded by attackers to provide crucial information about an organization's activities and systems. This information which includes email addresses, phone numbers, social security numbers and passwords are used by attackers for malicious purposes.
A successful social engineering tactic would be where an employee would provide details like login credentials, job titles and names. Depending upon the target, the hacker's approach may vary. Contact with the target can be established and thus trust can be gained.
Social engineering penetration testing - An effective solution for social engineering attack:
It is a testing method wherein processes and people and the vulnerabilities that are associated with them are focused and worked upon. In this testing method, an ethical hacker would conduct varied social engineering attacks such as impersonation, USB drops, phishing etc., to know how the employee or user would face such types of attacks. The objective of this test is to identify weaknesses in a process or person and identify vulnerabilities so that they can be remediated.
Types of social engineering attacks:
1. Pretexting: A fake but urgent action is created by attackers so that personal or organizational information and access are obtained.
2. Spear phishing: It is a targeted phishing attack, wherein correspondence to a particular employee is personalized by malicious actors, so that access to accounts, credentials can be gained.
3. Phishing: Users are contacted by attackers via voice call, phone call, text message or email through a web application so that they can be tricked into revealing their identities and credentials
4. Scareware: Employees are tricked by cybercriminals into downloading or purchasing malicious software, visiting malicious websites or making them believe that they are infected by malware.
5. Tailgating: In this scenario, employees are closely followed by attackers into certain restricted areas that would otherwise require the necessary permission to get access to them. For example, the employee is being followed by an attacker to a certain area that requires an access key.
Following are a few key benefits that can be expected through the implementation of social engineering penetration testing:
1. Thorough assessment is provided: A detailed assessment of the organization's susceptibility to attacks is provided by the social engineering penetration testing method. Specific manual techniques and automated tools are used to identify weaknesses.
2. Cyber threat protection: Businesses are protected from security breaches and cyber incidents through the tactical use of social engineering pen testing. Hence, the risk of reputational damage is reduced.
3. Protecting data: Data protection is ensured through this testing method, which, in turn, builds the client's trust when it comes to securing data.
4. Identifying vulnerabilities that have been overlooked: Those vulnerabilities that have been overlooked such as lack of multi-factor authentication, unsecured network protocols, weak passwords etc., are identified through the security engineering testing method.
5. Specific guidance for remediation: Comprehensive reporting is provided through which security flaws are managed and remediation is acted upon quickly.
Conclusion: If you are looking forward to implementing social engineering testing for your specific project, then do get connected with a professionally acclaimed software testing services company that will provide you with strategic testing solutions that are in line with your project specific requirements.
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