Musings of a Computer Scientist

I never thought that the Boston Globe will quote me on “Social Engineering” — but that’s what they decided to pick out of a long interview for their article “Around Internet, password fatigue setting in Protection becomes a not-so-secret frustration”…

E-mail access in particular is a gateway to other sites because it contains so much personal information, and hackers can exploit a that weak link to work their way into a more lucrative target, such as a bank account, said Azer Bestavros, a professor of computer science at Boston University.

“It’s called ‘social engineering,’ ” he said. “You could be part of a bigger plot. They use you as a step in a bigger scheme. This is why a person who would appear to be totally average could be useful to a hacker.”