What is social engineering?

What is social engineering?

Social engineering is the manipulation of people into performing actions or divulging confidential information. It is a type of confidence trick for the purpose of information gathering, fraud, or system access.

Social engineering relies heavily on human psychology and social norms to induce victims to act against their best interests. For example, a scammer may call a victim posing as a legitimate company representative and convince the victim to give them their credit card number or other sensitive information.

The goal of social engineering is to get the victim to do something or give up information that they would not normally do. This can be done in person, over the phone, or online.

In-person social engineering is when someone uses deception to get a person to do something or give them information. This can be done by pretending to be someone you’re not, such as a friend, authority figure, or member of a professional organization.

Over-the-phone social engineering is when someone uses deception to get a person to do something or give them information over the phone. This can be done by pretending to be someone you’re not, such as a friend, authority figure, or member of a professional organization.

Online social engineering is when someone uses deception to get a person to do something or give them information online. This can be done by sending an email that appears to be from a legitimate organization, such as a bank or government agency. The email may contain a link that takes the victim to a fake website that looks real. The website may ask the victim to input personal information, such as their Social Security number or credit card number.

Social engineering is a serious problem because it can lead to identity theft, financial fraud, and other types of crime. It is important to be aware of the signs of social engineering and to know how to protect yourself from becoming a victim.

Signs that you may be a victim of social engineering include:

• You receive an unsolicited email or call from someone who asks you for personal or financial information.

• You are asked to click on a link or open an attachment in an email.

• You are pressured to act quickly or told that there is an urgency to the request.

• You are asked to verify account information.

• You are directed to a website that looks legitimate but has a different URL than the one you are expecting.

To protect yourself from social engineering:

• Do not give out personal or financial information to someone you do not know.

• Do not click on links or open attachments in emails from people you do not know.

• Do not respond to emails or calls from people you do not know.

• Do not give out personal or financial information online unless you are certain that the website is legitimate.

• Be suspicious of unsolicited emails and calls. If you are unsure, hang up and call the company back using a number you know to be legitimate.

• Be cautious of anyone who asks you to act quickly or tells you that there is an urgency to their request.

• Do not provide personal or financial information to verify your account information. Legitimate companies will not ask for this information..See original website

What is a firewall?

A firewall is a network security system that monitors and controls incoming and outgoing network traffic based on predetermined security rules. A firewall typically establishes a barrier between a trusted internal network and untrusted external network, such as the Internet.

Firewalls are often categorized as either network firewalls or host-based firewalls. Network firewalls filter traffic between two or more networks and run on network hardware. Host-based firewalls provide a layer of software on one or more hosts that control traffic in and out of those hosts.

Most firewalls use a combination of filters that examine several characteristics of each packet to make sure it is legitimate. Some of these characteristics include the source and destination IP addresses, port numbers, and packet headers.

When a packet does not meet the criteria for a particular filter, the firewall can take one of several actions, such asdropping the packet,rejecting the packet,or logging the packet.

Network firewalls can be implemented in hardware, software, or a combination of both. Hardware-based firewalls are usually integrated into router devices. Software-based firewalls can be installed on almost any type of computer, including desktop computers, servers, and even mobile devices. Virtual firewalls are also available and can be run on virtual machines or cloud-based environments.

The most common type of firewall filters packets based on IP addresses and port numbers. For example, a firewall might be configured to allow all traffic from the IP address range of 192.168.0.0 to 192.168.0.255 on port 80, which is the default port for HTTP traffic.

firewalls can also be configured to perform more sophisticated filtering. For example, a firewall might be configured to allow only certain types of HTTP traffic, such as GET and POST requests. Or a firewall might be configured to allow only traffic from certain trusted IP addresses.

In addition to packet filtering, firewalls can also perform other functions, such as NAT and VPN. NAT (Network Address Translation) allows a single IP address to be used for multiple devices on a network. VPN (Virtual Private Network) allows traffic to be encrypted and tunneled through a public network, such as the Internet.

Firewalls are an important part of any network security strategy. They can help to protect against attacks from malicious users and software, and can also reduce the amount of unwanted traffic.

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