Ethical Hacking: Techniques, Tools, and Countermeasures, 4th Edition

What Is Social Engineering?

Social engineering is a term that is widely used but all too often poorly understood. Social engineering means tricking or coercing people into carrying out actions that an attacker cannot easily carry out. This type of cybersecurity attack mainly relies on unusual human action. Social engineers often use some technical tools, such as phishing emails or fake websites, but it is the human interaction, often a result of preying on human weakness, that defines an attack as social engineering.

Social engineers carry out scams meant to obtain information that they are not authorized to have. For example, attackers may pass themselves off as part of an organization’s tech-support team and then call around asking employees ...