The Social Engineering Process

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Social Engineering
The term is most widely used to describe unscrupulous behavior, such as misrepresenting oneself and lying to manipulate someone to provide sensitive information.

However, we use it positively and ethically to gather intelligence for our Smart Calls™. To us, social engineering simply means talking to people other than your prospect in order to gather information which will help you help your prospect.

Social Engineering can be done:
as a separate call before your first call to your prospect; and,
every time you call your prospect.
All it requires is that you take the time to do it, develop a sense of curiosity, and cultivate some conversational questioning techniques.

Completing all of these steps may indeed grant you a revelation that many of us have had: people are willing to give you amazing amounts of quality information if you just ask them.

Just Ask
Kevin Mitnick was one of the most notorious computer armenia telegram data hackers in the world; and at the time of his arrest in 1995, the most wanted computer criminal in US history. After his release from prison, he wrote the book entitled The Art of Deception, in which he shares precisely how he pulled off many of his hacking jobs.

Mitnick claims that he compromised computers solely by using passwords and codes that he gained by social engineering; in other words, simply talking to people. Now a speaker and security consultant to corporations, Mitnick points out that the weakest link in any security system is the person holding the information. You just need to ask for it.

Of course, we are using social engineering in the positive sense: asking for information from people that will help other people and the organization as a whole. The social engineering process for Smart Calling™ is as follows.

Upon reaching a live voice, you:
Identify yourself and the company you represent.
As in, “Hi, I’m Jason Andrews with National Systems.” This immediately shows that you are not hiding anything.