17. BUSINESS: WHAT ARE THE HUMAN TRAITS THAT THE HACKER LOOKS FOR IN ORDER TO SOCIAL ENGINEER IN A BUSINESS

WHAT ARE THE HUMAN TRAITS THAT THE HACKER LOOKS FOR IN ORDER TO SOCIAL ENGINEER IN A BUSINESS
Social engineers often target certain human traits and behaviours to manipulate their victims.
Here are some of the key traits that they look for:
Helpfulness	People generally act to help others altruistically and are not usually suspicious of others’ motives. Recognizing this, social engineers often prompt victims to act out of an unselfish desire to be helpful
Curiosity	This can be leveraged to carry out phishing attacks and spread malware.
Credulity and Naivety	These traits can be exploited by social engineers in countless ways
Inattention, Negligence or Ignorance	Attackers can take advantage of users’ inattention, negligence or ignorance
Motives, Habits, and Behaviour	Social engineers exploit individuals motives, habits, and behaviour to manipulate their victims
Personality Traits	Personality analysis and profiling are used often by psychologists and human resources (HR) departments to solve problems, improve or utilize skills, or identify the right career path for people.
There are several methods of analysing personality:
Goldberg’s “Big Five” model divides human traits into five groups: extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness,  neuroticism and openness to experience (with a change in order, this is also called the OCEAN model).
It’s important to note that these traits do not make someone inherently vulnerable; rather, they are aspects of human nature that can be exploited if not properly safeguarded.
Awareness and education are key in protecting oneself and one’s business from social engineering attacks