Social Engineering

Social Engineering is applying knowledge of human behavior and faults in order to place malware or obtain otherwise personal information, usually for malicious purposes such as spreading a virus or observing behavior on the computer. Examples include trojan horses, spyware, malware, keyloggers, fake computer support lines, false emails impersonating a reputable company, watching someone type their password, relying on the user to pick an easy to guess password, etc.

One example of a high-profile actress that was "Socially Engineered" (is that a proper term?) is Paris Hilton. Her SideKick was hacked and all of the hottest names in Hollywood and around the globe had to change personal, house, and vacation numbers, emails, and other personal information due to this act of Social Engineering. This caused disruption in the life of those stars, as you can imagine, and although Paris is usually associated with fine wines and desserts, the taste this time around was a bit more bitter. In this instance, the "Engineer" pretended to be an employee of T-Mobile when he called another location and asked for the username and password to their system. Without much effort, he got it, and had access to many of T-Mobile's "secured" pages. The rest of the story can be found at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/19/AR2005051900711.html

-Jon