Mining Mary’s Social Media Antics for Social Engineering

This fictional case study follows “Mary,” whose public social media, wedding announcement, and related online traces allowed an impersonator to gather her mother’s maiden name and birthdate via OSINT, call IT while impersonating her, and reset her workplace password; the report highlights phone-based social engineering and the importance of restricting personal information online, tightening privacy settings, and deleting or protecting dormant accounts to mitigate similar attacks.