What is social engineering?
Social engineering is the manipulation of people into giving up information, access or money, or into taking an action that helps an attacker. It exploits trust, urgency, fear and authority rather than a technical flaw.
How it works
Common forms include phishing by email, smishing by text, vishing by phone, pretexting with a made-up story, baiting with an attractive lure, and tailgating into a building. Many attacks combine channels: an email followed by a call that “confirms” it.
Generative AI has made social engineering cheaper and more convincing, with fluent messages in any language and cloned voices.
Why it matters
Social engineering is how attackers get past controls that work. Defending against it takes both controls and people who recognize the pattern and report it.
How Living Security helps
Living Security simulates social engineering across email, SMS, voice, QR codes and calendar invites, and scores the results in the Human Risk Index.
