Skip to Content
Social Engineering: The Art of Human Hacking
book

Social Engineering: The Art of Human Hacking

by Christopher Hadnagy
December 2010
Beginner content levelBeginner
404 pages
11h 8m
English
Wiley
Content preview from Social Engineering: The Art of Human Hacking

Chapter 4. Pretexting: How to Become Anyone

Honesty is the key to a relationship. If you can fake that, you're in.

——RICHARD JENI

At times we probably all wish we could be someone else. Heck, I would love to be a little skinnier and better looking. Even though medical science hasn't come up with a pill that can make that possible, a solution to this dilemma does exist—it's called pretexting.

What is pretexting? Some people say it is just a story or lie that you will act out during a social engineering engagement, but that definition is very limiting. Pretexting is better defined as the background story, dress, grooming, personality, and attitude that make up the character you will be for the social engineering audit. Pretexting encompasses everything you would imagine that person to be. The more solid the pretext, the more believable you will be as a social engineer. Often, the simpler your pretext, the better off you are.

Pretexting, especially since the advent of the Internet, has seen an increase in malicious uses. I once saw a t-shirt that read, "The Internet: Where men are men, women are men, and children are FBI agents waiting to get you." As slightly humorous as that saying is, it has a lot of truth in it. On the Internet you can be anyone you want to be. Malicious hackers have been using this ability to their advantage for years and not just with the Internet.

In social engineering playing a role or being a different person to successfully accomplish the goal is often ...

Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.
Start your free trial

You might also like

Hacking: The Art of Exploitation, 2nd Edition

Hacking: The Art of Exploitation, 2nd Edition

Jon Erickson
Practical Malware Analysis

Practical Malware Analysis

Michael Sikorski, Andrew Honig
Ethical Hacking

Ethical Hacking

Daniel G. Graham

Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9780470639535