Julia is a senior security analyst for Berber Consulting group. She is currently working on a contract for a small
accounting firm in Florid a. They have given her permission to perform social engineering attacks on the
company to see if their in-house training did any good. Julia calls the main number for the accounting firm and
talks to the receptionist. Julia says that she is an IT technician from the company’s main office in Iowa. She
states that she needs the receptionist’s network username and password to troubleshoot a problem they are
having. Julia says that Bill Hammond, the CEO of the company, requested this information. After hearing the
name of the CEO, the receptionist gave Julia all the information she asked for. What principal of social
engineering did Julia use?
A.
Social Validation
B.
Scarcity
C.
Friendship/Liking
D.
Reciprocation
Principles behind Social Engineering:
(1) Authority: pretend to be your boss
(2) Intimidation: threats
(3) Consensus/Social Proof: People will do things that they see other people are doing
(4) Scarcity: can do this now or month from now, saying offers are available for a “limited time only” encourages sales
(5) Urgency: you are putting X at risk
(6) Familiarity/Liking: People are easily persuaded by other people that they like
(7) Trust: do something for you first
(8) Reciprocity: People tend to return a favor, thus the pervasiveness of free samples in marketing