Social Engineering: The Art of Human Hacking

6.2. Influence Tactics

As mentioned, social engineers must practice the skill of persuasion until it becomes part of their everyday habits. This doesn't mean that they must influence everyone in everything they do, but being able to turn this skill on and off at will is a powerful trait of a good social engineer.

Influence and persuasion have many aspects you can use and many that fit easily into an audit. Other aspects might not fit too easily, but hold a very powerful position in the world of influence. The following sections cover eight different techniques of influence that are used often by media, politicians, government, con men, scammers, and of course, social engineers.

Each section provides an analysis of each technique to see how it is used in other areas of influence besides social engineering, as well as takes a closer look at how it can apply to a social engineer.

6.2.1. Reciprocation

Reciprocity is the inherent expectation that when others treat you well you respond in kind. A simple example is when you are walking into a building—if someone holds a door open for you, he expects you to say thank you and then make sure that next door stays open for him as he comes in.

The rule of reciprocity is important because often the returned favor is done unconsciously. Knowing this means that you now have a step up on how you can use it as a social engineer. Before getting into that, though, here are a few examples where reciprocity is often used:

Pharmaceutical companies ...