CAPEC-421
Influence Perception of Authority
An adversary uses a social engineering technique to convey a sense of authority that motivates the target to reveal specific information or take specific action. There are various techniques for producing a sense of authority during ordinary modes of communication. One common method is impersonation. By impersonating someone with a position of power within an organization, an adversary may motivate the target individual to reveal some piece of sensitive information or perform an action that benefits the adversary.
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Explain the attack pattern CAPEC-421: Influence Perception of Authority: how it unfolds, what it needs and how to prevent and detect it in my systems. Use https://capec.mitre.org/data/definitions/421.html and https://cve.bz/cve/capec/421?via=ask-ai-copy, which lists recent CVEs with the weaknesses it exploits. Cite the sources.Opens a third-party assistant; its answer is its own, not cve.bz's. The prompt holds only this attack pattern's id and public links.
Prerequisites
The adversary must have the means and knowledge of how to communicate with the target in some manner.
Skills required
- Low skill
The adversary requires strong inter-personal and communication skills.
Resources required
None: No specialized resources are required to execute this type of attack.
Consequences
| Impact | Affects | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Other | Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability | Attacks that leverage the principle of scarcity can lead to the target performing an action that results in a variety of consequences that negatively affect the confidentiality, availability, and/or integrity of an application or system. |
Mitigations
An organization should provide regular, robust cybersecurity training to its employees to prevent social engineering attacks.
Related attack patterns
- Part of
- CAPEC-417 Influence Perception
Examples
The adversary calls the target and announces that they are the head of IT at the target's company. The advers…
The adversary calls the target and announces that they are the head of IT at the target's company. The adversary goes on to say that there has been a technical issue and they need the target's login credentials for their account. By convincing the target of their authority, the adversary hopes the target will reveal the sensitive information.
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