Manipulating Human Minds: The Psychological Side of Social Engineering

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Presented at Kiwicon 2014 by

Christina Camilleri

Since security is based on trust in authenticity as well as trust in protection, the weakest link in the security chain is often between the keyboard and chair - we have a natural human willingness to accept someone at his or her word. This talk will focus on the psychological and physical involvement of social engineering, and look at manipulation and social influencing techniques that are able to exploit the behaviour of others - the dangerous, often overlooked aspects of social engineering. It will examine underhanded, deceptive and abusive tactics which can convince people to perform actions or divulge confidential information and what can be done to prevent this.