Social engineering is a cyber-attack where the threat actors attempt to gain access to sensitive information by manipulating people into providing sensitive information, or account credentials, or attempting to gain access to business IT systems.
The threat actors track digital footprints to gather as much information as possible about the organization, its employees, and its suppliers.
They then craft general or spear (targeted to specific employees) email phishing campaigns by preying on the emotions of employees by impersonating authority figures to gain access to credentials and/or personal information.
Social engineering is recognized as one of the greatest cybersecurity threats facing organizations. Social Engineering is extremely effective because the attackers are persuasive and very deceptive.