Think Like A Criminal: What You Need to Know About Social Engineering Attacks in 2025

We previously examined phishing email attacks from the eyes of an attacker in our article, Think Like A Criminal: How To Write A Phishing Email, to help you understand and protect against these email scams that are to blame for over 90%">over 90% of all company cyberattacks.

Organizations of all sizes would do well to arm themselves with knowledge and advice on social engineering tactics, as it accounts for 98% of all cyberattacks. This will help safeguard users and vital company assets. As this article will explain, cybercriminals employ social engineering techniques in various ways to launch an effective attack.

What Is Social Engineering & How Is It a Threat to My Business?

Social engineering is becoming increasingly sophisticated and pervasive as a method of cybercrime, making it one of the biggest threats modern businesses confront. Typically, it is using dishonest tactics to get someone to divulge sensitive information for your own fraudulent gain. While these techniques have been used for centuries, the rise of the digital age has significantly amplified their effectiveness.

The abundance of information available online allows modern hackers to gather as much detail as possible when crafting their attacks. This includes data mined from public databases, social media, and professional networking sites.  They can execute highly targeted and convincing scams by exploiting trust and leveraging human tendencies—such as the desire to help, fear of authority, or compliance with established relationships.

Like other cyber and email security threats, social engineering attacks generally follow a standard lifecycle methodology that can be broken down into four clearly defined steps:

1. Reconnaissance and Information Gathering: Attackers use Open-Source Intelligence Techniques (OSINT) to collect details about their targets, including professional roles, behavioral patterns, and contact information. This intelligence guides their choice of attack methods.
2. Establishing Trust: Through tailored communications, such as personalized emails or social media messages, cybercriminals initiate contact and build rapport with their victims, making the interaction appear credible.
3. Exploitation of Trust: The attacker manipulates the established relationship to extract sensitive data, such as login credentials, financial details, or access to restricted systems.
4. Execution and Concealment: The final stage involves completing the attack, whether by transferring stolen funds, distributing malware, or gaining unauthorized system access. Skilled attackers erase evidence of their actions to remain undetected.

Social engineering poses a severe threat because it preys on human psychology rather than technological vulnerabilities. The ease with which attackers can gather data and exploit trust relationships underscores the need for robust cybersecurity practices and vigilant awareness training within organizations.

Be on the Lookout for These Social Engineering Attacks

Social engineering scams are highly successful because they exploit human nature. Here are the attacks that are most likely to wreak havoc on your company’s cybersecurity:

Phishing: A Favorite Lure Among Social Engineers 

Phishing is the most common type of social engineering attack used to gain access to account credentials, sensitive data, confidential business information, and funds. Phishing has dominated the email threat landscape for decades; however, with the recent increase in remote workers and the proliferation of popular cloud platforms like Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace, there has been a resurgence in phishing email attacks. Unlike past phishing campaigns, a modern attack tricks users in more sophisticated and evasive ways, relying heavily on social engineering to appear legitimate. These malicious scams carry severe consequences for businesses, including data loss, financial theft, reputation damage, significant downtime, and, in many cases, permanent shutdown.

Brand Impersonation

Social engineering attacks may also impersonate well-known brands. These attacks are deployed via email, text, and voice messages and take advantage of the fact that most people receive messages from major brands regularly, eliminating suspicion when one extra message arrives.

Business Email Compromise (BEC)

Business Email Compromise (BEC) is a social engineering attack in which a trusted business contact is impersonated to convince the target to pay a fake invoice, transfer funds, or disclose sensitive company information. BEC scams target executives and leaders, finance employees, and HR managers. Newly hired employees with little experience tend to be reliable victims, as they may not be able to verify the sender’s legitimacy yet.

Tailgating

Tailgating is a social engineering attack involving an unauthorized person gaining physical access to an off-limits location, such as a password-protected area, where they might steal sensitive information, damage property, compromise user credentials, or even install malware on computers.

Baiting Attacks

Baiting attacks involve a target inputting a storage device into a machine to open the fake content. It is designed to appear entirely legitimate to avoid triggering suspicion and infecting their system with malware.

Pretexting Attacks

Pretexting abuses the trust between the victim and someone they know by convincing the target to provide certain private information. These threat types tend to have a higher chance of success because they are considerably more challenging for anti-spam filters to detect.

Shoulder-Surfing Attacks

Hybrid work environments have made shoulder-surfing attacks more relevant and dangerous. In these attacks, an attacker sits in a public place behind an individual working remotely so that they can catch a password being entered or sensitive information displayed on a screen. Shoulder-surfing attacks are also used to steal ATM users' PINs.

Quid Pro Quo

Quid Pro Quo, social engineering attacks promise a financial reward in exchange for an employee performing a malicious action for the attacker. Cybercriminals can ask former or current company workers since organizations do not always shut down old accounts right after termination.

Watering Hole Attacks

As employees regularly visit certain websites to perform essential work-related tasks, a watering hole attack happens when a cybercriminal infects the website to steal sensitive information or distribute malware. Attacks like these are difficult to fight since victims cannot directly work on the security of the infected website.

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How Can I Defend Against Social Engineering Attacks?

Most social engineering attacks are so targeted and deceptive that falling for a scam can no longer be blamed on the victim. Even the most security-conscious individuals can be tricked by social engineering. Thus, defending against social engineering attacks requires a comprehensive, fully managed cloud email security software solution capable of anticipating and blocking advanced and emerging email threats in real time and preventing all malicious mail from being delivered, creating a safeguarded environment for the user.

Additionally, users and organizations should use strong passwords for all accounts and be careful what information they make publicly available online, including addresses, phone numbers, and more. You can monitor the accessibility of your personal information through websites like Have I Been Pwned, which inform users when their data has been discovered.

Keep Learning About Social Engineering Protection

People are not computers - but they can still be hacked through social engineering tactics. Combating modern email threats that leverage social engineering techniques requires a fully managed, all-in-one cloud email security solution that safeguards your inbox against all fraudulent mail that could potentially lead to compromised accounts.

• Learn more about protecting your business from malware ransomware.
• Improve your company posture to protect against phishing email attacks by following best practices for email security.
• Keeping the integrity of your email safe requires securing the cloud with spam filtering and enterprise-grade anti-spam services.
• Get the latest updates on how to stay safe online.