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Social engineering attacks on the knowledge worker

Published: 26 November 2013 Publication History

Abstract

Social engineering has become an emerging threat in virtual communities and is an effective means to attack information systems. Today's knowledge workers make use of a number of services that leverage sophisticated social engineering attacks. Moreover, there is a trend towards BYOD (bring your own device) policies and the usage of online communication and collaboration tools in private and business environments. In globally acting companies, teams are no longer geographically co-located but staffed just-in-time. The decrease in personal interaction combined with the plethora of tools used (E-Mail, IM, Skype, Dropbox, LinkedIn, Lync, etc.) create new attack vectors for social engineering attacks. Recent attacks on companies such as the New York Times, RSA, or Apple have shown that targeted spear-phishing attacks are an effective evolution of social engineering attacks. When combined with zero-day-exploits they become a dangerous weapon, often used by advanced persistent threats. This paper provides a taxonomy of well-known social engineering attacks as well as a comprehensive overview of advanced social engineering attacks on the knowledge worker.

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  • (2024)Cyber Espionage and Cyber DefenceInformation Technology for Peace and Security10.1007/978-3-658-44810-3_5(93-116)Online publication date: 1-Nov-2024
  • (2023)Zero-day and zero-click attacks on digital banking: a comprehensive review of double troubleRisk Management10.1057/s41283-023-00130-425:4Online publication date: 28-Sep-2023
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Published In

cover image ACM Other conferences
SIN '13: Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Security of Information and Networks
November 2013
483 pages
ISBN:9781450324984
DOI:10.1145/2523514
Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact the Owner/Author.

Sponsors

  • Macquarie U., Austarlia
  • MNIT: Malaviya National Institute of Technology
  • Aksaray Univ.: Aksaray University
  • SFedU: Southern Federal University

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 26 November 2013

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Author Tags

  1. attack scenarios
  2. bring your own device
  3. knowledge worker
  4. privacy
  5. security
  6. social engineering

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  • Invited-talk

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SIN '13
Sponsor:
  • MNIT
  • Aksaray Univ.
  • SFedU

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Overall Acceptance Rate 102 of 289 submissions, 35%

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Cited By

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  • (2024)A Comprehensive Taxonomy of Social Engineering Attacks and Defense Mechanisms: Toward Effective Mitigation StrategiesIEEE Access10.1109/ACCESS.2024.340319712(72224-72241)Online publication date: 2024
  • (2024)Cyber Espionage and Cyber DefenceInformation Technology for Peace and Security10.1007/978-3-658-44810-3_5(93-116)Online publication date: 1-Nov-2024
  • (2023)Zero-day and zero-click attacks on digital banking: a comprehensive review of double troubleRisk Management10.1057/s41283-023-00130-425:4Online publication date: 28-Sep-2023
  • (2022)Social Engineering AttacksEmerging Technologies in Data Mining and Information Security10.1007/978-981-19-4193-1_49(497-509)Online publication date: 29-Sep-2022
  • (2022)Preparation of a Social Engineering Attack, from Scratch to Compromise: A USB Dropper and Impersonation ApproachInformation and Communication Technologies10.1007/978-3-031-18272-3_19(281-293)Online publication date: 5-Oct-2022
  • (2021)Insights into Organizational Security Readiness: Lessons Learned from Cyber-Attack Case StudiesJournal of Cybersecurity and Privacy10.3390/jcp10400321:4(638-659)Online publication date: 11-Nov-2021
  • (2021)A Comprehensive Survey of Security Challenges and Threats in Internet of Things2021 5th International Conference on Information Systems and Computer Networks (ISCON)10.1109/ISCON52037.2021.9702368(1-5)Online publication date: 22-Oct-2021
  • (2021)Impact of Social Engineering Attacks: A Literature ReviewDevelopments and Advances in Defense and Security10.1007/978-981-16-4884-7_3(25-35)Online publication date: 29-Oct-2021
  • (2021)An Analysis of Cyber Espionage ProcessDevelopments and Advances in Defense and Security10.1007/978-981-16-4884-7_1(3-14)Online publication date: 29-Oct-2021
  • (2020)Defining Social Engineering in CybersecurityIEEE Access10.1109/ACCESS.2020.29928078(85094-85115)Online publication date: 2020
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