Practical Social Engineering

3 Preparing for an Attack

The most outrageous lies that can be invented will find believers if a man only tells them with all his might.

—Mark Twain, letter to Alta California newspaper, San Francisco, 1867

Performing a social engineering attack creates a rush like no other. But before we perform these attacks, we need to define a process for completing them. If we don’t, we can find ourselves in legal trouble, or worse, we could damage the mental health of our targets. This is where frameworks come into play.

This chapter will introduce you to a process for coordinating with your client to determine (and stick to) the scope of an engagement. ...