What term describes the manipulation of people to reveal sensitive information?

The manipulation of people to reveal sensitive information is termed social engineering. This practice involves exploiting human psychology to persuade individuals to divulge confidential data, such as passwords, personal identification numbers, or other sensitive details. Social engineering attacks can take various forms, including phishing emails or pretexting scenarios, where an attacker pretends to be someone trustworthy to gain access to protected information.

Understanding social engineering is crucial because it highlights the importance of user awareness and training in cybersecurity. Organizations often focus on technical defenses, but human factors play a significant role in security breaches. By recognizing the tactics used in social engineering, individuals can be better prepared to recognize suspicious behavior and protect sensitive information.

The other terms refer to different concepts in the security domain. For instance, pod slurping involves the theft of data from a device via a portable storage device; privilege escalation refers to gaining higher access rights than intended within a system; and tailgating describes unauthorized individuals following authorized personnel into secure areas. While all of these are relevant to incident handling, they do not directly describe the act of manipulating individuals to disclose information, which is the essence of social engineering.