Ask HN: Resources on social engineering | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Resources on social engineering

29 pointsswombat10 comments

Social engineering is of obvious interest to startups. Whether it's to get that contact with the CEO of a potential partner, or to get through to the sales manager who can give you a discount on your hosting plan, or even just to get past a gatekeeper and turn that lead into a sale, being able to work your way through the social network at another company is extremely useful.

What are some great resources (books, blogs, movies, or others) that you've found, on or off the web, that taught you to be a better social engineer?

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Social engineering is a well established industry and art. It just generally falls under the categories of "Sales and Marketing". See also "How to win friends and influence people" by Dale Carnegie.

So on the technical side of an SE attack there's SET (the Social Engineering Toolkit): http://www.social-engineer.org/framework/Computer_Based_Soci...

And then I guess the rest of the resources on http://www.social-engineer.org

iamelgringo's suggestion of "How to win friends and influence people" is worthwhile if you've never read it.

The Art of Deception by Kevin Mitnick is a fun read. It's more about how to defend against social engineering, but you can take it from the other side too. :)

Bruce Schneier's blog could be an interesting read.

He talks about social engineering as a form of security attack but much of the examples he may provide are relevant.

http://www.google.com/search?domains=www.schneier.com&si...

I have found psychology books to be rather interesting in understanding social engineering.

http://www.amazon.com/Mistakes-Were-Made-But-Not/dp/01510109... http://www.amazon.com/Lucifer-Effect-Understanding-Good-Peop...

..You get the idea.

http://labmice.techtarget.com/security/socialengineering.htm

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1995394

2600.com

http://www.ZacharyBurt.com

Read through my list of articles and tell me to my face that my blog isn't an excellent resource for this. smh

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