Social Engineering: The Art of Human Hacking Author: | Language: English | ISBN:
B008TSHUVC | Format: PDF
Social Engineering: The Art of Human Hacking Description
The first book to reveal and dissect the technical aspect of many social engineering maneuvers...
From elicitation, pretexting, influence, and manipulation, all aspects of social engineering are picked apart, discussed, and explained by using real world examples, personal experience, and the Science & Technology behind them to unraveled the mystery in social engineering.
Kevin Mitnick - one of the most famous social engineers in the world - popularized the term social engineering. He explained that it is much easier to trick someone into revealing a password for a system than to exert the effort of hacking into the system. Mitnick claims that this social engineering tactic was the single-most effective method in his arsenal. This indispensable book examines a variety of maneuvers that are aimed at deceiving unsuspecting victims, while it also addresses ways to prevent social engineering threats.
This audiobook
- Examines social engineering, the Science & Technology of influencing a target to perform a desired task or divulge information;
- Arms you with invaluable information about the many methods of trickery that hackers use in order to gather information with the intent of executing identity theft, fraud, or gaining computer system access; and
- Reveals vital steps for preventing social engineering threats.
Social Engineering: The Art of Human Hacking does its part to prepare you against nefarious hackers. Now you can do your part by putting to good use the critical information this audiobook provides.
- Audible Audio Edition
- Listening Length: 14 hours and 56 minutes
- Program Type: Audiobook
- Version: Unabridged
- Publisher: Audible, Inc.
- Audible.com Release Date: August 3, 2012
- Whispersync for Voice: Ready
- Language: English
- ASIN: B008TSHUVC
This book really isn't about computer safety, or about personal safety - it's just kind of all over. By page 40 I was skimming paragraphs, but page 100 I was skipping entire pages. This book is not written for people in the security field, nor is it really written for people who want to know more about their personal security. I think that if you know enough already to be aware of what social engineering is in the first place and have a decent understanding of personal computing safety - you already know what this book can give you. I would classify this book as a collegiate "survey 101" level textbook on communications - the book focuses on very general processes and only the last 60 pages discuss actual examples.
While deciding whether to buy this book or not, I joked with a friend that the fact that the first 28 people who reviewed it gave it 5 stars, was ITSELF an act of social engineering. I am not so sure that is a joke anymore. I've been buying books on Amazon for 12 some years now, and I don't think I've seen a book get that many fanatically raving reviews right off the bat. Looking back again at all those reviews, I guess perhaps if you know absolutely nothing at all about email scams and personal security, and happen to also be a CEO, then this book would be worth reading.
The foreword and first 10 pages talk about what will be in the book. This is a common format, but that's an awful lot of pages wasted on material that is literally repeated again later in the book. And then up front we see material on The Nigerian Scam. If you are a security professional or a CEO, or anyone really - and have fallen prey to this or don't know what it is, seriously, you've got bigger problems to deal with.
One can sum up all of Social Engineering: The Art of Human Hacking in two sentences from page 297, where author Christopher Hadnagy writes "tools are an important aspect of social engineering, but they do not make the social engineer. A tool alone is useless; but the knowledge of how to leverage and utilize that tool is invaluable". Far too many people think that information security and data protection is simply about running tools, without understanding how to use them. In this tremendous book, Hadnagy shows how crucial the human element is within information security.
With that, Social Engineering: The Art of Human Hacking is a fascinating and engrossing book on an important topic. The author takes the reader on a vast journey of the many aspects of social engineering. Since social engineering is such a people oriented topic, a large part of the book is dedicated to sociological and psychological topics. This is an important area, as far too many technology books focus on the hardware and software elements, completely ignoring the people element. The social engineer can then use that gap to their advantage.
By the time that you start chapter 2 on page 23, it is abundantly clear that the author knows what he is talking about. This is in stark contrast with How To Become The Worlds No. 1 Hacker, where that author uses plagiarism to try to weave a tale of being the world's greatest security expert. Here, Hadnagy uses his real knowledge and experience to take the reader on a long and engaging ride on the subject. Coming in at 9 chapters and 360 pages, the author brings an encyclopedic knowledge and dishes it out in every chapter.
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