Question: You have been asked by your manager to create a briefing for a group of students interning in the IT department about a common attack method and the challenges it presents to cyber defenders. You will use this lab to work through a set of tasks that will help you understand the importance of a defender adopting a hacker mindset, so that as a defender, you will be better prepared to defend against an attack and its associated effects. Your experience in the lab and the readings provided to you in this module are necessary to creating your brief. You may need to engage in some independent research based on the attack vectors you are choosing from the Social Engineering Toolkit in your lab for Question 2.

1. Why might a hacker choose social engineering over other attack methods?

2. What could a hacker’s rationale be for the choices you made in the lab menus for this attack to be delivered?

3. In what ways did the simulated end-user (victim) responses confirm or not confirm the viability of the attack strategy?

4. How did the automation aspects of your exploit toolkit advantage you as an attacker and disadvantage the defenders?

Answer: Social engineering is as a cyber attack that involves manipulating people into revealing sensitive information……