Cybersecurity glossary
What is social engineering?
Also known as: pretexting
Definition
Social engineering is the manipulation of people, rather than technology, to gain access, information or money.
Why it matters
It exploits trust, urgency, authority and helpfulness. Phishing, pretext calls, fake IT support and impersonation are common forms. Verification through a separate channel is the most reliable defense.
Common questions about social engineering
Sources
Related Guides
GuideGRC
How to Build a Security Policy Framework: Policies, Standards and Procedures That People Follow
A practical guide to writing, approving and maintaining information security policies: the policy hierarchy, the core policy set, ownership, review cycles and how to prove people follow them.
Read more GuideIncident Response
The Binance Hack Timeline: How a 93-Cent Transaction Drained $6.3 Billion
A minute-by-minute account of the October 2026 Binance hack: the EIP-7702 sweep, the freeze race, the "one laptop" explanation, the North Korea attribution and where the money is now.
Read more GuideGRC
How to Conduct a Cybersecurity Risk Assessment in 7 Steps
A step-by-step method for information security risk assessment aligned with ISO 27005 and NIST SP 800-30: assets, threats, likelihood and impact scoring, risk appetite, treatment and the risk register.
Read more GuideSOC
9 Quick-Win AI Agent Use Cases for Security Operations
Nine high-impact, low-effort SOC tasks to hand to AI agents first, what each agent does and the metric that proves it, plus the tasks to keep human.
Read more