Glossary

Social Engineering is the manipulation of persons to make them act in a particular way. Within the IT sector Social Engineering has become a relevant security threat due to repeated cases of targeted, professional manipulation of key personnel in companies to gain access to sensitive company data (also see economic espionage and industrial espionage). This is also called Social Hacking. Social Engineers work very strategic and sophisticated. Tactics include the espionage of the target subject's private and professional environment as well as the enacting of (often authoritarian or trustworthy) characters. Usually the target subject is not aware of being manipulated and illegally exploited. A classic method of Social Engineering is Spear Phishing.