Social Engineering - Christopher Hadnagy [78]
“Buy now, you can see the benefits!” This one starts with the voice low, then up to a normal tone, then back down for benefits.
“The higher my company goes in consulting, the more nice people like you we encounter.” Implanting the higher my company with a pleasant comment has just increased your chance of being hired, partly because of the play on words (Higher sounds like hire—thus what the listener hears is hire my company).
From a social engineering standpoint you can form sentences when performing an audit over the phone to maximize the potential for success, such as:
“This is Larry from tech support; we are giving all reps new passwords. Your new password is…”
The following are tips for using your voice in successful social engineering:
Practice. You have to practice speaking in this manner so you don’t sound like a teenage boy entering puberty. Your rising and falling tones can’t sound canned; they must be subtle.
Have careful sentence structure. Develop sentences that maximize your ability to accomplish your tasks. Don’t go for the kill, so to speak. A command like “give me access to your server room now” is probably not going to work, but you can use these voice techniques to help a target be more open to the idea.
Be realistic. Don’t expect to speak and have people falling at your feet to do what you ask. These techniques can put your target in a frame of mind that will make getting what you want easier.
One technique, Ultimate Voice, if mastered, does have very powerful effects. I once interviewed an NLP practitioner on a podcast who had this gift. When he spoke it was as if you could not argue with him. He spoke with such control and technique that disagreement never even entered my mind. How can one master this technique?
Using Ultimate Voice in Social Engineering
You can master the Ultimate Voice but it takes lots of practice. The ability to embed commands into normal conversation is a skill that is very useful when mastered. Ultimate voice is the ability to inject commands into people’s minds without their knowledge. It can sound very artificial when new people try it, until enough practice makes them sound natural.
Hypnotists often use this technique like so:
“You can feel yourself relaxing as you slip into calmness.”
This standard therapy phrase can be adapted to nearly any command you like. Put extra emphasis on the vowels in the words you want to accent—for example, “yooouurseeelf reelaaxiing.”
Planet NLP (www.planetnlp.com/) offers three exercises that you can use to work on mastering this technique.
1. Move your voice around. Press your hand on your nose and say “nose.” Concentrate on your nose as you repeat the word until you can feel your nose vibrating. Now do the same exercise with your hand on your throat, saying “throat.” Do the same on your chest, saying “chest.” Keep practicing until you can really feel the vibration in each place. Notice how different each one sounds.
2. Use your range. Starting from a high note, say “ar” (as in the letter r). Keeping your mouth open, allow the note to drop down until your breath runs out.
Repeat this exercise ten times.
Then, starting from a low note, say “ou” (as in you without the y), allowing the note to rise until you cannot support the sound.
Repeat this exercise ten times.
3. Resonate. To use your voice correctly, it must resonate in the mask, which is the facial area surrounding the nose and mouth.
There are two ways to practice resonating:
Hum at whatever pitch is most comfortable for you. After you have found your pitch then hum “umm” followed immediately by the word “ready.” Do this a few times, then try the words “now,” “one,” “two,” and “three.”
Hum and then allow your lips to vibrate. You are attempting to sound like a dove. Allow the pitch to rise and fall. This is very difficult if you have any tension in the jaw or face. Done correctly for a few minutes, your face will start to feel numb.
After a couple of minutes using these methods, you should notice that your