What does "social engineering" involve in cybersecurity?

Social engineering in cybersecurity refers to tactics that exploit human psychology to gain sensitive information or access to systems. The core idea is to manipulate individuals into providing confidential information, such as passwords or personal identification numbers, often by creating a sense of urgency, fear, or trust.

For instance, an attacker may pose as a legitimate authority figure or a trusted entity in order to persuade the individual to reveal sensitive data. This could occur through phishing emails, pretexting, or even in-person interactions. Successful social engineering attacks do not necessarily rely on technical skills but focus on understanding and manipulating human behavior.

The other options describe different activities that, while related to cybersecurity, do not capture the essence of social engineering. Collecting data via surveys is a legitimate and often benign process, network intrusion detection involves monitoring and analyzing network traffic for suspicious activity, and engineering hardware devices focuses on physical security measures rather than psychological manipulation. Thus, the essence of social engineering lies in its approach to deceive individuals rather than technical exploits.