16. Social Engineering
You may have noticed that many of the methods described so far involve people falling for common tricks or doing things that are inherently insecure. That’s because hackers need you in many cases to essentially give them what they need. In other words, hackers are con artists.
They will try to watch you type in your passwords, create Facebook posts that get you to reveal your secret questions (more on that in a minute), dumpster dive (more on that, too), and simply talk you. You read that right, some hacker might be people you converse with. So, just be smart about what information you give out.
Speaking of information, be smart about your password hints and secret questions. “Where did you go to high school” is easy to lookup and while “what was the name of your first pet” might not be known to most people, there are ways to get you to talk. For example, we’ve all seen those Facebook posts that say something like “What’s your Harry Potter character name?” It might say something like “when were you born” and “what’s your first pet’s name” then associate a name with it. All of the sudden your post about being called “Albus Von Snowball” is really a way for a hacker to know you were born June 1972 and your cat’s name was Snowball. Think before you post.
As mentioned earlier, dumpster diving is another technique used by hackers, as well as leaving flash drives on the ground. Dumpster diving allows hackers to get information from your mail, flash drives and allow hackers access to your computer when you plug them in. Don’t plug in “missing” flash drives and conceal or destroy identifying traits on your trash.