Which concept involves manipulating individuals within an organization to obtain confidential information?

The correct answer is social engineering because it specifically refers to the techniques used to manipulate individuals into divulging confidential or sensitive information. This practice relies on psychological manipulation rather than technical exploits to gain unauthorized access to data.

Social engineering can take many forms, such as phishing emails, pretexting phone calls, or in-person impersonation, all aimed at exploiting human psychology to bypass security controls. Attackers may pose as trusted figures, such as company employees or IT personnel, to trick targets into revealing passwords, account details, or other sensitive data.

While physical security measures are important for protecting access to buildings and hardware, and network monitoring practices focus on analyzing network traffic to detect unusual activities, these do not involve direct manipulation of individuals. Incident response protocols deal with how to react after a security breach has occurred but do not encompass the initial deceptive practices used to obtain information. Understanding social engineering is crucial for organizations to train employees on recognizing and mitigating these types of threats.