Combating Social Engineering: A DoD Perspective

Individuals and organizations are under increasing threats from social engineering attacks. The Department of Defense (DoD) is a lucrative target for malicious attackers, due to the sensitive nature of America’s national security assets, tactics, techniques, and procedures. Attackers seek to access this information in whatever manner possible. The rise of social engineering attempts against DoD employees highlights the necessity of defeating social engineering attacks in order to maintain system integrity, thus protecting national security information. Good policies, education and awareness, and common sense defeat social engineering attacks. Formalizing and operationalizing social engineering benefits the DoD both offensively and defensively.