Social Engineering

1
Social Engineering
Francis Ogunjimi
Grand Canyon University
Cyber Warfare and Applications
Dr. Sean Atkinson
24th August , 2022.

2
PART 1
In order to build a spear phishing assault that targets a user of Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn,
I would lure the user using a page that looks exactly like Facebook and then pose it as a security
alert or password-reset request. Users of social media share a common dread of having their
accounts locked, if one looks at the psychology of these users. A warning that the user's account
might be blocked at any time if they don't update their password may send shivers down their
spine, forcing them to immediately follow the method. Including a few extra questions, such the
user's birthdates, can help allay suspicions while also revealing a lot about the individual. (Hong,
J. ,2012)
For a phishing attack, I would make a phony website—for instance, one for Coca-Cola—that
seems real and, when clicked, asks the user to input their information to be eligible for an offer.
This can be done simply copying the webpage of the real company and adding a few fictitious
remarks to the bottom of the form. Using myschool.edu/finance as opposed to a misspelled
domain name Myschool.edu.finance.com could be used instead. The user might not be aware of
an attack because of the similarities. Attackers can reach thousands of people with phishing
emails, and some of them might fall for the scam, causing them to lose money or crucial
information.

3
References
Hong, J. (2012). The state of phishing attacks. Communications of the ACM, 55(1), 74-81.
Laszka, A., Vorobeychik, Y., & Koutsoukos, X. (2015, February). Optimal personalized
filtering against spear-phishing attacks. In Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on
Artificial Intelligence (Vol. 29, No. 1)
Alkhalil, Z., Hewage, C., Nawaf, L., & Khan, I. (2021). Phishing Attacks: Recent
Comprehensive Study and a New Anatomy. Frontiers in Computer Science, 3, 6.