Social Engineering - Christopher Hadnagy [100]
Summary
As you probably have already imagined, embedding commands is a vast field with a lot of room for error. You must practice to be very successful at it. Although I do not promote using this information for seduction some decent videos exist about seduction that show how embedded commands can work.
Using these principles can create an environment where the target is very receptive to your suggestions.
Just because you tell the person, “You will purchase from me” does not mean he always will. So why use these commands?
It creates a platform to make social engineering easier. Using these types of commands is also a good lesson for companies you work with to educate them about what to look for and how to spot someone who may be trying to use this type of social engineering tactic against them.
If you were to write out this principle of embedded commands as an equation, you could write it this way:
Human Buffer Overflow = Law of Expectations + Mental Padding + Embedded Codes.
Start a conversation with a target using phrases, body language, and assumptive speech. Presume the things you ask for are already as good as accomplished.
Next, pad the human mind with some statements that make embedding commands easier, while at the same time embedding the command. In essence this is the equation for the human buffer overflow. Use this equation sparingly, but practice a lot before you attempt it. Try it at work or home. Pick a target at work that might not normally comply with simple requests and try to see whether you can get him to serve you coffee: “Tom, I see you are heading to the kitchen, will you get me a cup of coffee with two creams please?”
Escalate your commands to larger tasks to see how far you can get. Try to use this equation to get commitment from people. Eventually use this equation to see how much information you can get and how many commands you can inject.
This chapter covered some of the deepest and most amazing psychology principles in social engineering. This chapter alone can change your life, as well as your ability as a social engineer. Understanding how people think, why they think a certain way, and how to change their thoughts is a powerful aspect to being a social engineer. Next on the docket: how to influence your target.
Chapter 6
Influence: The Power of Persuasion
If you would persuade, you must appeal to interest rather than intellect.
—Benjamin Franklin
The epigraph sums up this entire chapter. You might be wondering why I didn’t include this within Chapter 5’s discussion of psychological principles of social engineering. Psychology is a science and a set of rules exists in it that, if followed, will yield a result. Social engineering psychology is scientific and calculated.
Influence and persuasion are much like art that is backed up by science. Persuasion and influence involve emotions and beliefs. As discussed in some of the earlier chapters, you have to know how and what people are thinking.
Influence and the art of persuasion is the process of getting someone else to want to do, react, think, or believe in the way you want them to.
If you need to, reread the preceding sentence. It is probably one of the most powerful sentences in this whole book. It means that using the principles discussed herein, you will be able to move someone to think, act, and maybe even believe the way you want him to because he wants to. Social engineers use the art of persuasion every day and, unfortunately, malicious scammers and social engineers use it, too.
Some people have devoted their life to researching, studying, and perfecting the art of influence. Those such as Dr. Ellen Langer, Robert Cialdini, and Kevin Hogan have contributed a very large repository of knowledge in this field. Mix this knowledge with the research and teachings of NLP (neurolinguistic programming)