Social Engineering

In nineteen twenty five, a man sold the Eiffel Tower. Twice. No laptop, no phone, not even a Wi-Fi password taped to a router.

And here is the part that should keep you up tonight: his descendants have your phone number.

Last year, Americans filed more than one million complaints with the FBI about crime on the internet. A million. First time in history. Nearly twenty-one billion dollars gone. And the most reported crime of all was not some genius cracking a government vault. It was phishing. Somebody pretending to be somebody else. That is it. That is the whole crime wave. A bunch of people doing bad improv.

Think about that. Nobody picked a lock. Nobody cut a wire. There were no green characters raining down a screen like in the Matrix movies. We opened the door, offered them a cold drink, asked if they wanted to see the basement, and then helped them carry out the TV, the silverware and the jewelry.

The thief of the future does not need a crowbar. He just needs you to be polite.

I am Dr. Qubit, and this is Behind the digital curtain, the only show where technology gets explained without making you feel like you skipped a class everyone else attended. And since it is October, my birthday month, which happens to be Cybersecurity Awareness Month in the United States, today we are talking about the oldest trick in the book with the most expensive name in the world: social engineering.