What is Social Engineering?
I came across a funny screenshot today that provides a pretty clear example of how social engineering is used to con people (in this case, Windows users) while browsing the Internet (click for full size):
Clearly, this user is not running Windows XP but Ubuntu Linux. Yet with their pop-up blocker disabled in Firefox 3, a malicious website presents a window that mimics a “real” warning. But it’s actually a trap. This is probably the most common reason viruses find their way into Windows systems — by exploiting a users lack of expertise and susceptibility to intimidation on a technical level. So fair warning to you Windows users out there. Fortunately for our Linux user, he’ll just laugh and close this window. If you’re a Windows user and you see an alert like this, you should close it too (but run a virus scan using something like AVG immediately afterwords).