What Is Social Engineering?

This document is a concise primer on social engineering: it explains how attackers research and target victims, the typical attack stages (research, relationship building, exploitation, execution, cover-up), common forms (phishing, BEC, baiting, scareware, quid pro quo, tailgating), reasons these attacks evade defenses, and recommended mitigations such as security awareness training, email filtering, multi-factor authentication, and least-privilege access.