Social engineering

Social engineering

Introduction :

"Social engineering" is an act of psychological manipulation, it was popularized by hacker-turned-consultant Kevin Mitnick. The term had previously been associated with the social sciences, but its usage caught on among computer professionals and it is now a recognized term of art.



How to social engineer a person ?

First to social engineer a person, you need to have as many information as you can about him, the most important ones are:

1- What makes him mad?

2- What makes him sad?

3- What does he really like?

4- What is his job?

5- What makes him always exited?



And sometimes, age helps. (You'll see that in the examples later on)

You need to have a special goal when you social engineer a person, I'm gonna first talk and give examples about social engineering and computer hacking, like to get information about everything related to accounts and things into the computer. Then, I'll talk and give examples about real life social engineering and mind manipulating.



Social engineering and Hacking a person:

Example 1 :

slave : Male, 13 years old, he really likes playing online games and especially poker, winning in poker makes him always exited.

Goal : Get his poker chips.

Plan : Add him on IM or chat with him somewhere, say that you sell online poker chips i.e on Facebook ( Now, because you said that you are a seller, he will talk to you seriously). He will probably ask for the price, let's say a very low price for a big quantity, but add to your reply that you need at least 24h before you get the poker chips. Ask him if he can wait because you will double them (" you will double them" --> makes him exited) so now he will probably ask you :how much will you double them?" You say there is a secret cheat site, it's undetectable, and that you can double your chips in 24h ( You must create a site with this form asking for Facebook mail and password, with some additional details like "What was your last server on poker, on Facebook?" etc.. and you should work on the design..) so he will probably ask for it, you should not give it directly..just wait till he asks for it twice and give it to him asking/begging him to not spread it and share it wtih others. And here you go, wait a second and check the results of your forms. Then, you'd have his account.



Example 2 :

slave : Male, 28 years old, Business man.

Note that you should always think about if the info you have can give you more tips and abilities to do in your plan. Like here, you will see that the plan will work simply because a business man is always busy and wont think an hour or two of your plan, since he has work, so you may need to know that this will help.

Goal : Accessing his Paypal.

Plan : Getting his mobile number, calling him from a public phone with a strange voice, ( first you must call paypal to see what words they may say and you may use them..its better to be more real ) So, you will say here : Hi it's paypal customer services department we got your mobile number regarding the account " his paypal email " and we're sorry to bother you but we had a database problem with our servers so we're trying to reset everything and get all the information back. You can get your paypal online as before, we're sorry for any inconvenience this may cause, can you please provide us with your old password ? We will email you a reset link so you can change it later on for more security.

This should work, also remember to call him in a time where he cant be online so he wont go and check if he's paypal is online and working fine etc..





Example 3 :

slave : Girl.

Goal : Her Facebook.

Plan : add her on IM ( or if you already have her ) Create a fake Facebook login page, talk with her a bit and tell her that she has a really ugly picture on Facebook and link her to it ( your link .. the fake log-in one ) and she will definitely go there because this always works on girls.



Example 4 :

slave: Anyone.

Goal : His e-mail.

Plan : Talk with him for a while .. check for his mail security question and ask him that question. When you see that he's taking and giving with you in his conversation, try to answer his secret question before he does. He will go for it, like if the question is " What is your first pet? " you can say in your conversation with him that your first pet died it was a fish and than ask him about his first pet etc..



I'm done with the " personal " part now we still in the hacking part but we will talk about social engineering a group of people together.



Social engineering and Hacking a group :

I'm not going to give a lot of examples, i'll just write a few lines about it. Like.. A group of Texas-Hold Em' players will get exited on chips, so just make a public phisher and spread it with social networks or whatever, for football fans you may talk about a player's secret that is well-known and link them to your phisher etc, for noobs trying to hack you can use your fake programs.

You need to know that when you're social engineering groups, its like one person but there is no sorry for a mistake because if one of this group knows that you're trying to hack/engineer them you will be done. So, you need to create a story in which they will all believe, or whatever you need in imagination here on each subject and everything depends on your goal.



Social engineering and manipulating minds :

Okay let's be honest, this is really really hard to explain but Ill try my best to give you the best examples and tips =).

Okay in "manipulating", you need someone to do what you want him to do. So lets say you want your friend (a girl) to leave her boyfriend, you need to put that screen in her mind that will push her to leave him directly without any thinking about before or even memories, you need a lie or a pretext that will end the story. For example, telling her that he asked you if your sister was single and asked your for her phone number and e-mail.. etc and it seems he wants to leave her etc.. but remember you should be acting before saying anything like you're sad and you're hiding something. If she is your friend, she will probably ask "Why?" and you'll say "No, I do not want to hurt you.." etc.. When she just asks twice, tell her in a sad voice the example before, you just manipulated your friend.



Other example about manipulating, I'll give an example on how to let someone buy your products, okay so you need to know what he wants to buy, you need to make your product the most perfect thing on Earth. Also remember that repeating things in many ways of talking really helps like "The car is accident resistant" and "Remember that you're safe with this car " .

Another and the last example about manipulating, is how make yourself the slave when you're the one who did the mistake. You need pretexts. Those pretexts should be real and not taken from movies, like if you didn't want to reply to your girlfriend all the day and you simply did not! You will call her at night after your day is done saying that you fell on the floor and you were really hurt so you just went and slept since you couldn't even walk and you're sorry because your phone was silent and not beside you when you were sleeping, you will see her from the angry face becoming the one who cares about you saying: "Oh I'm sorry baby hope everything is okay now and you're feeling better" etc..



How to convince someone :

Okay so lets say you need to convince someone about a bank that is really not good and secure but you will get the % of money if you can get referrals. So you need to see the positive parts even if they're small and makes him look large and minimize the negative parts not giving them importance in your talks, and maybe sometimes adding things to the positive part that are normal in any bank but simply enumerating good things will convince them. (No need to give examples you just need to get the idea of convincing)





How to get information about someone :

You may try the internet like reversing his name, email or phone number to get some information or sometimes his Internet protocol address, or you may search in social networks and search engines for information about him.

Or simply get them via your new SE skills like via IM talking to him asking him in an indirect way about his birthday or his preferred things, hobbies etc. just note that you need to share with him good things before and make him like you in a way even if you still a stranger ( that's true only on internet, in face to face you need to make something wrong to connect to the person like acting that you did not see him and push him than say sorry etc and try to develop contact with him ) .