Social Engineering

In Short

• THE COURSE IS CURRENTLY INACTIVE - THE INFORMATION HERE IS FROM THE LAST RUN IN SPRING 2023. The next run will probably take place in Spring term 2024 - the wiki will be updated shortly before the beginning.
• The aim of this course is to provide students with basic knowledge of social engineering and human-based cyberattacks (see the ICS0018 Course Guide for details). The course is held by the IT College of Tallinn University of Technology and is primarily meant for students of Cyber Security Engineering, but other students interested in the human side of cybersecurity can also benefit from it.
• The course can be held in contact or e-learning mode (and possibly some hybrid way as well). Due to large number of visiting students from EuroTEQ, the Spring 2023 run is a full e-course (again see the guide for details). Note: this run is the first under the aegis of the university (it was run once in 2018 as part of the earlier IT College curriculum) - some irregularities can be expected!
• Course code: ICS0018
• Lecturers: Kaido Kikkas (lectures/discussions + overall coordination; User:Kaido.kikkas, ETIS) and Kristjan Karmo (seminars/discussions and hands-on tasks; User:Krkarm, LinkedIn).
• Programme: at the Study Information System - unfortunately, it only shows the Estonian version, an updated English-language programme is available here.
• Volume: 3 ECTS credit points
• Grading: Pass/fail

Course Information

• Course Guide
• Netiquette
• Library
• Hands-on seminars
• CotW seminars

Announcements

• The course kick-off (first lecture, including course intro) will take place on Wednesday, Feb 1 at 14.00 (2PM) Tallinn time (NB! 13.00 in Central Europe!) in the MS Teams environment of the university. The participation invitations will be delivered to all students whose Uni-ID is registered shortly before the event.

Topics, Materials and Notes

THE DATES ARE FROM THE LAST RUN IN SPRING 2023

• Week 1 (Feb 1) lecture: Course introduction + Introduction to Social Engineering (lecture slides: OpenDocument, PDF)
• Week 2 (Feb 8) lecture: Information gathering (lecture slides: OpenDocument, PDF)
• Week 3 (Feb 15) lecture: Elicitation (lecture slides: OpenDocument, PDF)
• Week 4 (Feb 22) lecture: Pretexting (lecture slides: OpenDocument, PDF)
• Week 5 (Mar 1) lecture: Some psychological aspects (lecture slides: OpenDocument, PDF)
• Week 6 (Mar 8) lecture: Influence and persuasion (lecture slides: OpenDocument, PDF)
• Week 7 (Mar 15) lecture: The Way of the Ninja (lecture slides: OpenDocument, PDF)
• Week 8 (Mar 22) lecture: Prevention, mitigation and counters (lecture slides: OpenDocument, PDF)

Frequently Asked Questions

• Q: Where can I find information about the course (tasks, grading etc)?
• A: from the Course Guide
• ...