Homework Help: Questions and Answers: Social engineering attacks rely on which of the following?
a) Developing exploits for unpatched vulnerabilities.
b) Convincing people to perform a harmful action.
c) Infecting trusted applications with a buffer overflow.
Answer:
First, let’s the question: The question is asking which of the listed options aligns with the nature of social engineering
Social engineering attacks are techniques used by attackers to manipulate individuals into revealing confidential information, performing harmful actions, or bypassing security measures. These attacks exploit human psychology rather than technical vulnerabilities.
Given Options: Step by Step Answering
a) Developing exploits for unpatched vulnerabilities
- This refers to exploiting software or system vulnerabilities that have not been fixed by a patch.
- While it is a form of attack, it is a technical approach and not related to human manipulation, so it does not describe social engineering.
b) Convincing people to perform a harmful action
- This directly involves manipulating individuals through deception or persuasion to perform actions that compromise security.
- This is the core principle of social engineering, such as phishing, baiting, or pretexting.
c) Infecting trusted applications with a buffer overflow
- This is a technical attack where malicious code is injected into applications through a buffer overflow vulnerability.
- It is not related to manipulating people, so it does not describe social engineering.
Final Answer:
Based on the above analysis, the correct answer is:
(b) Convincing people to perform a harmful action.
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