Social Engineering: The Art of Human Hacking

4.1. What Is Pretexting?

Pretexting is defined as the act of creating an invented scenario to persuade a targeted victim to release information or perform some action. It is more than just creating a lie; in some cases it can be creating a whole new identity and then using that identity to manipulate the receipt of information. Social engineers can use pretexting to impersonate people in certain jobs and roles that they never themselves have done. Pretexting is not a one-size-fits-all solution. A social engineer must develop many different pretexts over his or her career. All of them will have one thing in common: research. Good information gathering techniques can make or break a good pretext. For example, mimicking the perfect tech support rep is useless if your target does not use outside support.

Pretexting is also used in areas of life other than social engineering. Sales; public speaking; so-called fortune tellers; neurolinguistic programming (NLP) experts; and even doctors, lawyers, therapists, and the like all have to use a form of pretexting. They all have to create a scenario where people are comfortable with releasing information they normally would not. The difference in social engineers using pretexting and others is the goals involved. A social engineer, again, must live that persona for a time, not just act a part.

As long as the audit or social engineering gig lasts, you need to be in the persona. I "get in character" myself, as do many of my colleagues, some ...