What is Social Engineering?

Social engineering is a broad term that encapsulates a wide array of techniques that exploit psychological factors – such as fear, trust, panic, lack of information, and confusion – to compromise a target. Rather than directly hacking a system or identifying technical weakness in a target's devices or digital accounts, social engineering focuses on the manipulation of individuals to perform acts which may not be in their best interest, such as divulging sensitive data or inadvertently transferring funds to a malicious actor. Social engineering tactics can also be used to gain access to networks and devices, in which case a malicious actor can wrest control away from the legitimate owner to install malware in the system.