Cyber Dictionary
Social engineering
Hacking the human instead of the computer — manipulating people into breaking security procedures or giving up information.
Social engineering targets the one component you can't patch: people. Instead of breaking the encryption, the attacker convinces someone to hand over the key — through trust, authority, urgency, or plain helpfulness.
Common flavors:
- Phishing — see the dedicated entry.
- Pretexting — inventing a believable scenario ("I'm from IT, I need to verify your login").
- Tailgating — following an employee through a badge-only door.
The defense is a culture where it's normal to verify, normal to say no, and normal to report the weird email — not a new appliance in the rack.