Introduction

In law enforcement, there are expert interrogators that undergo special training to learn how to draw the truth out of suspects. The success of a social engineer depends on the ability to finally convince a target to do something. The most successful social engineering attacks have been as a result of targets being persuaded to do absolutely absurd things and surprisingly complying to do them. An accountant was recently persuaded to transfer millions of dollars to an overseas account that he had no knowledge of and without question he did exactly that. In many other attacks, the absurdity of the requests made by the social engineers never cease to amaze and the compliance of the victims is almost laughable. But how are social engineers able to convince people to do such things? The following sections will address this issue in depth.