Security starts with people. This unit covers how attackers manipulate people (social engineering), how password attacks work and how to make logins stronger, the risks of public Wi-Fi, how AI makes attacks more convincing, and how defenders use AI to fight back.
Social engineering uses psychological tactics to get people to reveal information (elicitation), download malicious files or click malicious links, by email, text, social media or in person. Intimidation threatens negative consequences; urgency pushes people to act fast before thinking. Victims can lose personal data, one-time codes or control of their devices.
Online password attacks try common passwords, common patterns or stolen passwords. Signs: many failed logins in a short time, logins at unusual times, logins from unknown devices. People reuse predictable patterns (word + two-digit year + symbol, names, dates), so attackers build personal dictionaries. Defend with long, random, unique passwords or passphrases, a password manager, and MFA.
Low-skilled adversaries use purchased tools against known vulnerabilities; high-skilled ones build or adapt tools and find zero days. Motivations include greed, recognition, causes, revenge, politics and beliefs. Wireless attacks include evil twins, jamming (a denial of service) and war driving. Verify network names exactly, weigh unencrypted Wi-Fi carefully, and consider a VPN.
Adversaries use AI to clone voices and faces, write fluent phishing in any language, extract sensitive data from LLMs, poison training data with false websites, scan public posts for reconnaissance, and help write malware or find vulnerabilities. Defenses: shared secrets with family and friends, MFA, never entering sensitive data into AI tools, and verifying AI output with reliable sources.
AI tools can review security configurations, analyze code for vulnerabilities and suggest detection rules, but a knowledgeable human must review every recommendation. Because networks generate millions of events a day, AI can sort likely malicious events from harmless ones, alert people or take corrective action, and speed up response.