When people hear “cyberattack,” they imagine code being cracked, systems breached, firewalls broken. What they rarely imagine is a conversation. A phone call. A message. A friendly voice that sounds like help.
That’s the danger of social engineering.
Social engineering doesn’t attack systems first.
It attacks people.
I learned this the hard way.
How Social Engineering Really Works
Social engineering is the art of manipulation. It’s when attackers use psychology, familiarity, and trust to persuade someone into giving up access often without realizing they aredoing anything wrong.
What makes it so effective is that it doesn’t feel like an attack.
It feels like opportunity.
Or assistance.
Or validation.
That’s exactly how my own account was taken over.
When Familiarity Felt Like Proof
The person who contacted me knew things about me. Not deeply personal things but enough. Where I had posted an advert. What I was offering. How to frame the conversation in a way that caught my attention.
And because they knew those details, I assumed they were legitimate.
That’s the trap.
Attackers don’t guess.
They research.
This process is called reconnaissance gathering information about a target before making a move. Social media, online ads, public profiles, casual posts… they all become puzzle pieces.
At the time, I didn’t see it as reconnaissance.
I saw it as credibility.
I thought, “If they know this much about me, they must be genuine.”
That assumption cost me access.
Why Social Engineering Works So Well
Social engineering succeeds because it leans into very human traits:
- curiosity
- optimism
- trust
- ambition
- the desire to be seen and helped
It doesn’t force entry it is invited in.
And once that invitation is extended, technology does exactly what it’s told to do.
What Changed After That Experience
I won’t pretend I wasn’t naive then because I was.
But I also won’t pretend that naivety makes someone foolish.
It makes them human.
Since stepping into cybersecurity, my relationship with information has completely changed. I am far more intentional about what I share online. I think twice before posting details that could be stitched together into a profile of me.
Because attackers don’t need everything.
They just need enough.
What I am Intentional About Now
Today, I treat my digital presence the same way aviation treats safety assume risk, reduce exposure.
I am careful about:
- personal details shared publicly
- patterns in what I post
- who contacts me and why
- links and permissions
And especially passwords.
Passwords should never be tied to anything visible on your social media names, dates, interests, milestones. If it can be learned about you, it shouldn’t protect you.
The Real Lesson Social Engineering Taught Me
Social engineering isn’t about intelligence levels.
It’s about context.
Attackers don’t show up waving red flags.
They show up sounding reasonable.
That’s why awareness matters more than fear.
Cybersecurity didn’t teach me to stop trusting people.
It taught me to slow down, verify, and separate familiarity from legitimacy.
And that lesson painful as it was became one of the most valuable foundations in my cybersecurity journey.
Because once you understand social engineering, you stop asking,
“How did they hack the system?”
And you start asking the better question:
“How did they convince the human?”
