Summary

In this chapter, we embarked on a journey to gain a deep understanding of the social engineering life cycle. By way of introduction, we understood how this life cycle was developed and its evolution over the years.

Then, we explored each of the stages that comprise this life cycle, from doing a passive recognition and selection of the victim to the last stage in which the attacker leverages information elicited from the victim to execute the attack (for example, gaining unauthorized access to the victim’s bank accounts).

We also provided a number of screenshots that illustrated each of the stages of the attack, and we hope that these will also serve as an inspiration for you to create your own images to illustrate the different stages of attacks during your awareness campaigns.

To close the chapter, we also provided you with a list of tips and techniques to reduce the probability and impact of social engineering attacks across the stages of their life cycle...