Social Engineering and Cybersecurity Threats

Study Notes

Social Engineering: an attack vector that relies on human interaction and manipulation to gain unauthorized access to systems, networks, or physical locations, often using psychology to trick individuals into breaking security protocols and best practices.

Accomplice Aggressor: an attack where the attacker sends a malicious email or text, tricking the recipient into clicking a toxic link, which can initiate malware installation, ransomware attacks, or data breaches.
SQL Injection (SQLI): an attack that injects malicious SQL code into a backend database, gaining unauthorized access to sensitive information, such as customer records, buyer details, or entire tables.

Information Mining: a technique used to prevent phishing and fake sales by detecting malicious activities.
Example Coordination: used for fingerprinting, facial recognition, and voice recognition in defense and military applications.
Fuzzy Logic: used in malware penetration detection.

2019 Research by Springer: evaluated machine learning algorithms (SVM, ANN, NB, DT, and USML) for detecting Botnet DDoS attacks using UNBS-NB fifteen and KDD99 datasets.

DDoS Attack: a distributed denial-of-service attack where multiple compromised computers target a single system, causing it to slow down or shut down, denying service to legitimate users.
Man-in-the-Middle Attack: a type of eavesdropping attack where attackers intercept and alter communication between two parties, often to steal sensitive information.
Malware Attack: a cyber-attack where malicious software executes unauthorized activities on a victim's system, including ransomware, spyware, and Trojan horses.
Phishing Attack: a social engineering attack that tricks individuals into revealing sensitive information, such as login credentials or credit card numbers.