Pretexting

A social engineering tactic where an attacker creates a fabricated scenario to manipulate a victim into divulging confidential information

Example

A tech support representative calls an employee claiming there's a critical security issue with their account.

• To "verify" their identity and fix the problem, the caller asks for their username, password, and access codes.
• The employee, believing it's a legitimate IT support call, provides the information.
• The attacker now has credentials to access company systems.