What is social engineering? A guide and 5 tips on social engineering prevention

Social engineering is the use of psychological manipulation to persuade someone to reveal information, transfer money, grant access, or take an action they normally would not take. The social engineering meaning is important because the attacker may never need to “hack” a system in the traditional sense. Instead, they convince a person to open the door for them.

For example, a scammer might call an employee pretending to be from the IT department and claim there is an urgent problem with the employee’s account. If the employee provides a verification code, the attacker may be able to access the account without breaking through any technical security controls.

In today’s digital age, social engineering attacks are becoming increasingly common. These scams pose a significant threat to individuals and organizations alike. This guide is a social engineering toolkit with actionable ways to protect yourself from phishing and social engineering attacks.

What is social engineering?

Social engineering is the name for a tactic used by cybercriminals to manipulate individuals into divulging confidential information. Unlike traditional hacking, which relies on technical skills, social engineering methods exploit human psychology. The “engineers” use psychological manipulation to exploit human vulnerabilities. They essentially hack human emotions to get what they want from their victims.

For these criminals, the goal is to gather information, gain unauthorized access, or compromise systems.

The aim of a social engineering attack can be financial gain, data theft, or system disruption at an organizational level. There are various ways accessed information can be leveraged to help criminals get what they are after.

What is social engineering in security?

If you’re asking what is social engineering, social engineering in security, or looking for a social engineering security definition, think of it as an attack on human decision-making.

A social engineering attack often relies on trust, authority, fear, curiosity, or urgency.

Imagine an employee receives an email that appears to come from the CEO:

“I'm boarding a flight and need you to purchase $2,000 in gift cards for a customer event. Send me the codes as soon as possible.”

The request sounds urgent, comes from someone with authority, and discourages the employee from slowing down to verify it. That is a classic social engineering scam.

How do social engineers manipulate people?

People asking how do social engineers attempt to manipulate people or how do social engineers successfully manipulate people should understand that attackers often exploit predictable emotional reactions.

Common social engineering tactics include creating urgency, pretending to have authority, offering something desirable, threatening negative consequences, or making the victim feel responsible for helping.

For example, a scammer might say:

“Your account has been compromised. If you don't verify your identity in the next 15 minutes, your account will be permanently locked.”

The short deadline is intentional. The attacker wants the victim to react before thinking critically.

What are common social engineering scams?

Social engineering scams can include phishing emails, fake technical-support calls, business-email compromise, romance scams, account impersonation, and fraudulent payment requests.

A common example is a vendor-payment scam. An employee receives an email that appears to come from a legitimate supplier saying:

“We recently changed banks. Please send all future payments to this new account.”

If nobody independently verifies the change, the next invoice payment could go directly to a criminal.

That is why fraud social engineering can cause serious financial losses even when a company's computer systems are otherwise secure.

What are signs of social engineering?

Common signs of social engineering include unusual urgency, requests for passwords or verification codes, pressure to bypass normal procedures, secrecy, unfamiliar payment instructions, or a sudden change in someone's communication style.

When considering which of the following best describes social engineering, the most accurate answer is usually psychological manipulation used to influence someone into taking an unsafe action.

How can you prevent social engineering?

Social engineering prevention depends heavily on verification.

If you want to know how to prevent social engineering attacks, how to avoid social engineering, how can you prevent social engineering, or how can you protect yourself from social engineering, start with one rule: unusual requests should be verified through a second trusted channel.

If your “boss” emails asking for money, call them. If your bank texts asking for a password, open the official banking app instead. If IT asks for your multifactor authentication code, contact the help desk through the number you already know.

A commonly used type of social engineering is phishing, but the best defense applies to nearly every version: slow down, verify independently, and do not let urgency override normal security procedures.

Common types of social engineering attacks

Understanding the various types of social engineering scams is crucial for prevention. It’s also confusing. There’s phishing, vishing, smishing…it’s a lot to keep track of. Here are some common examples:

Phishing attacks

Phishing uses deceptive electronic communications, such as emails, text messages (although text attacks are also called smishing, more on that below), or social media messages, to trick recipients into revealing personal information, clicking on malicious links, or downloading harmful attachments.

These communications are designed to appear as if they come from reputable sources, like banks, online services, or colleagues, often employing urgent or enticing content to provoke a quick response.

Phishing campaigns typically target a wide audience, casting a broad net to maximize the number of potential victims, although more targeted forms of phishing, known as spear-phishing, focus on specific individuals or organizations.

What is vishing?

Vishing, short for voice phishing, is a type of social engineering attack conducted through phone calls to deceive victims into divulging personal information or performing actions that benefit the scammer.

Unlike phishing, which relies on electronic communications like emails or texts, a vishing attack involves real-time voice interactions where the scammer often poses as a trusted figure, such as a bank representative, technical support agent, or government official.

The attacker uses persuasive conversation techniques, often leveraging urgency or fear, to manipulate the victim into providing sensitive information, such as credit card numbers, Social Security numbers, or account passwords.

The immediacy and personal nature of a phone call can make vishing particularly effective, as the scammer can adapt their approach based on the victim’s responses and build a sense of credibility and trust more quickly.

Smishing

Smishing and phishing are essentially the same thing. Smishing vs phishing differ in that smishing uses text messages as the delivery mechanism and phishing uses emails.

Phishing is typically targeted at a broad audience while smishing is usually targeted at a single individual.

Baiting

Baiting is a social engineering attack that entices victims with the promise of a valuable item or an alluring offer to trick them into compromising their personal information or security.

Unlike phishing or vishing, baiting often involves physical media or online offers that exploit human curiosity or greed. For example, a scammer might leave a USB drive labeled “Confidential” in a public place, hoping someone will pick it up and plug it into their computer, thereby installing malware.

Baiting can also occur online, where victims are lured by attractive downloads, such as free music, movies, or software, that secretly contain malicious software.

The success of baiting relies on the victim’s desire to obtain the offered “bait” and their lack of suspicion about the source or intent behind it. This technique leverages both digital and physical channels to exploit human psychology and bypass traditional security measures.

Pretexting

Creating a fabricated scenario to steal personal information, scammers use a fictitious scenario or persona to manipulate a victim into divulging sensitive information or performing actions that benefit the scammer.

The attacker builds a convincing story and often poses as a trusted figure, like a bank representative, IT support, or government official, to gain the victim’s trust. This method relies heavily on personal interaction, typically through phone calls or face-to-face encounters, where the scammer asks specific questions to gather information incrementally, using the fabricated pretext as a guise.

Why do cyber attackers use social engineering?

Cybercriminals favor social engineering attacks because they can bypass technical security measures by targeting the human element.

These attacks often require fewer resources and can yield high rewards. It’s hacking a human instead of a computer, there’s a reason the term “human error” exists, we’re fallible and can make mistakes that a computer is programmed to avoid.

Social engineering examples

To illustrate the impact of social engineering, here are some real-world examples of social engineering:

• Fitness Subscription Phishing Scam: In 2023, employees at professional services firms received fake emails claiming their subscriptions to a popular fitness service were activated, with automatic monthly charges to their payment cards. Respondents were tricked into downloading remote support software, which allowed attackers to exfiltrate data and demand ransom to avoid data publication.

• Midnight Blizzard’s Microsoft Teams Phishing Attack: The Russian threat actor group, Midnight Blizzard (also known as NOBELIUM), used a sophisticated social engineering scheme on Microsoft Teams. They compromised Microsoft 365 tenants and used them to send malicious messages. The attack involved tricking users into entering MFA codes into their Microsoft Authenticator app, giving attackers access to sensitive accounts.

• Deepfake Technology for Financial Crimes: Deepfakes have become a new tool for social engineers. In June 2024, a deepfake of Elon Musk was used to manipulate cryptocurrency investors, telling them to deposit their crypto on a shady website. Similarly, in 2019, an energy company’s CEO was impersonated through synthetic audio, leading to a fraudulent transfer of $238,000. These deepfakes exploit the trust placed in familiar voices and faces, causing significant financial damage.MGM Hack and Social Engineering: Hackers used social engineering to gain access to sensitive information from MGM Resorts, affecting millions of guests.

Banks don’t protect you from social engineering

We all expect that if our money is in a bank it’s secure and protected against scams like social engineering. FDIC insurance may cover some losses from social engineering hacks, but it’s unlikely.

One unfortunate victim in California lost her life savings after Chase Bank denied her claim for losses due to social engineering.

The cybercriminals were very crafty and got the victim to give bank access codes to them repeatedly over a week. The victim was duped into giving the thieves access to $160,000. The thieves exploited 2-factor authentication vulnerabilities to trick the victim into sharing 2FA text message codes. The criminals used the codes to drain the victim’s life savings.

They took everything from her and Chase Bank blamed the victim for not doing enough to secure her account.

This lack of coverage for losses related to social engineering is one of the reasons OmniWatch offers social engineering insurance in our premium plan. Recognizing that even when you do everything right, something can still go wrong is why we’ve expanded our $2 million identity theft insurance coverage to also include social engineering at no additional cost.

How can you protect yourself from social engineering?

Preventing social engineering involves a combination of awareness, training, and technological solutions. Here are some tips:

Educate yourself and others: Awareness is the first line of defense. Conduct regular training sessions on recognizing and responding to social engineering fraud in your workplace and at home with your family.

Verify before trusting: Always verify the identity of anyone requesting sensitive information. Use official channels to confirm their legitimacy. Set up family passwords that you don’t share with anyone else. You can use these in case of an emergency to thwart social engineering scammers.

Use strong passwords and two-factor authentication: Enhance security by using complex passwords and enabling two-factor authentication.

Monitor and respond: Implement systems to detect suspicious activities. OmniWatch’s security solutions can help monitor and respond to potential threats.

OmniWatch’s $4 million identity theft insurance coverage: The OmniWatch team is continually updating our social engineering prevention tips, sending alerts when there’s suspicious activity in your account, and is here to provide 24/7 support through our restoration experts if something goes wrong. Plus, our identity theft insurance policy covers up to $4 million in losses, including for social engineering scams.

Social engineering prevention and you

Protecting yourself from social engineering scams requires a proactive approach. By leveraging the social engineering toolkit listed above, staying vigilant, and utilizing solutions like OmniWatch, you can significantly reduce the risk of falling victim to these sophisticated attacks.

OmniWatch is one of the top providers of social engineering insurance coverage with up to$4 million identity theft insurance coverage. If you do get tricked by a social engineering scammer, we’ve got your back.

For more detailed information and to explore how OmniWatch can help secure your digital environment, visit www.OmniWatch.com/features.

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This guide is published by OmniWatch. Follow OmniWatch on Facebook for ongoing guidance on identity protection, digital safety, and scam awareness.