Social engineering refers to the practice of manipulating people to divulge confidential information that can then be used to compromise an information system. In many cases, people, not technology, form the weakest link in the security of an information system. This chapter discusses the problem of social engineering and then examines new social engineering threats that arise as voice, data, and video networks converge. In particular, converged networks give the social engineer multiple channels of attack to influence a user and compromise a system. On the other hand, these networks also support new tools that can help combat social engineering. However, no tool can substitute for educational efforts that make users aware of the problem of social engineering and policies that must be followed to prevent social engineering from occurring.
