Social Engineering - Christopher Hadnagy [93]
As mentioned before, when the 9/11 attacks happened in New York City, many people claimed to have lost family or friends in terrorist attacks. That made people empathize and therefore these “victims” were given money, fame, or whatever they were seeking.
As a social engineering auditor, you must be able to have a broad range of emotions that you can tap. Being closed in your emotions makes being empathetic very hard. This point goes along with really liking people. If you do, you won’t have a hard time getting to know them and their stories and empathizing with them.
Be Well Rounded in Your General Knowledge
Knowledge is power. You don’t have to know everything about everything, but having some knowledge about some things is a good idea. It makes you interesting and gives you something to base a conversation on.
Knowledge is power. The old hacker mantra comes back to you as a social engineer. A social engineer should be a reader and a studier. If you fill your head with knowledge then you will have something to talk about when you approach a target. Don’t neglect reading, researching, and studying about the topic of the target’s occupation or hobbies. Your goal is not to be a “know-it-all” and become an expert on every topic, but rather to have enough knowledge that you don’t look at the target with a blank stare when she asks, “Did you bring an RJ-45 connector with you to fix the server’s network connection issues?”
Develop Your Curious Side
People normally feel a little self-righteous when it comes to their beliefs or thoughts on the way things should be done. That self-righteousness or judgmental attitude can change the way a person reacts to something being said. Even if you don’t say anything you may start to think it, which can show in your body language or facial expressions. Instead of being self-righteous, develop a curiosity about how other people think and do things. Being curious keeps you from making rash judgments. This can be applied by being humble enough to ask for help or ask for more information. Be open minded enough to look into and accept another’s thoughts on a topic, even if those thoughts differ from yours.
Curiosity did not kill the social engineer. This point doesn’t change much from a non–social engineer perspective. When you become curious about others’ lifestyles, cultures, and languages you begin to understand what makes people tick. Being curious also keeps you from being rigid and unbending in your personal judgments. You may not personally agree with certain topics, beliefs, or actions but if you can remain curious and nonjudgmental then you can approach a person by trying to understand why he is, acts, or portrays a certain way, instead of judging him.
Find Ways to Meet People’s Needs
This point is the pinnacle of the list and is one of the most powerful points in this book. Dr. William Glasser wrote a book called Choice Theory in which he identified four fundamental psychological needs for humans:
Belonging/connecting/love
Power/significance/competence
Freedom/responsibility
Fun/learning
The principle behind this point is that creating ways for people to get these needs met by conversing with you builds instant rapport. If you can create an environment to provide those needs for people, you can create bonds that are unbreakable.
Let me tell you a brief story about how powerful meeting people’s needs can be. I was in a minor car accident. A young driver pulled out in front of me and then decided to stop. I had a split second to decide between hitting him going 55 mph or veering off away from him then launching my car over a small ditch into the side of a mountain. I chose in a second to not kill the three young people in the car. My car went airborne until it was stopped by solid rock. I watched my beautiful little customized Jetta crumple