Social Engineering and Human Nature

I’m often asked, particularly by new entrants into cyber, what books they should read, and what podcasts they should listen to. The list of both is endless, but I thought I’d share some titles with you. Before we start though, a word about my relationship with books…

I’m a passionate reader, and a compulsive purchaser of books. So I have a lot on my shelves that I’ve not yet read, but loads that I have.  I had cause to sit and ponder today and reckon I’ve over 25m of bookshelves at home, which are mostly full – and a pile of books by my bed, and another on my desk.

For some reason, I group my books by subject matter and height order, and have recently moved away from keeping all by the same author together to having them grouped by colour. (My LPs are stored in alphabetical order, by artist then by album title: this is something I’ve done since I was a teenager!)

The picture with this post shows my “social engineering” shelf, which includes titles on microexpressions (Paul Ekman) and the psychology of persuasion (Robert Cialdini). Interestingly, the author of the Cyber Effect, Mary Aiken, was a producer and consultant for the show CSI: Cyber, and was in fact the inspiration for Patricia Arquette’s character in the programme.  (Beware though, once you start watching, you’ll watch the entire series in one sitting!)

It’s not possible to be a good social engineer, to gain people’s trust and ask them to do things to help you, without understanding human psychology. Ditto if you’re carrying out phishing attacks, you need to know what will make people click on links etc.

Microexpressions give away how someone is really feeling, so it’s really important that social engineers understand and recognise these. If you want to know how they can be used, you might want to watch the show Lie To Me. Paul Ekman was a consultant on the show, and his work is explained particularly well in season 1.   (Another binge watch alert here!)

It’s impossible to talk about social engineering without mentioning Kevin Mitnick. Once one of the FBI’s top 10 Most Wanted fugitives, Mitnick is one of the foremost authorities in the world on social engineering. I have already written a post about his book, Ghost in the Wires.

I’ll share information on some of the other books on my shelf another time. These should be a good starter for you if you’re interested in the meantime!