Social Engineering: The Science of Human Hacking

Christopher Hadnagy is entertaining to read and has a tremendous amount of practical examples and anecdotes to illustrate key concepts and ideas. He pulls from solid research and real world experiences. I plan on reading anything he writes, and anyone he mentions that I should read.

This updated edition to Christopher Hadnagy’s classic has stayed with the times. While the tools have changed, the underlying method of OSINT remains the same. Chris provides an overview of the steps every social engineer takes to extract information out of you and ultimately deceive you. He does provide some tools that you can use, but as he states, technology constantly advances so you have to be mindful that what might have worked a year ago may not work again today.My one complaint for this book is that the images are low resolution and hard to make out. They’re all in black and white, which makes it difficult to spot irregularities for his many exercises.Still, this is a great edition that managed to keep up with the pace of the internet’s changes and will keep you up to date on the world of social engineering.

Social Engineering: The Science of Human Hacking by Christopher Hadnagy explains how attackers exploit human psychology to bypass security measures. The book arrived on time and in good condition.The content has been helpful in my consulting work. By detailing techniques like phishing, pretexting, and elicitation, it provides clear insights into how social engineering operates. The examples and references have supported the development of realistic testing scenarios to evaluate and strengthen clients’ defenses. These scenarios, informed by the book’s focus on decision-making and emotional manipulation, have been effective in identifying vulnerabilities and offering practical recommendations.The book’s guidance on recognizing and mitigating social engineering tactics is practical and easy to apply. The strategies have been useful for creating tests that assess human vulnerabilities and evaluate the success of existing defenses.I recommend this book to professionals looking to understand social engineering and develop tools for improving organizational security. It is a solid resource for testing and mitigation efforts.

My name is Silvana Blomgren, I have a question about brain hacking. I have been a Victma of cyber criminal's using higher technology to control people brain. They can do a lot of things using those technology until things that a lot of people can think it’s spiritual! The criminals use religions to excuse to commit crimes! They using Mormons, catholic, Islam, evangelicals and Illuminati. They call the people house with a technology cloning voice pretending to be a person of family or friends using the cloning voice. They also call with voice of God, Jehovah and Allah! They does use make profiles on instagram and Facebook with a picture of a pastor and asking money saying the God give then the vision about me! I called back to this person said was Jehovah asking money and I heard a lot guys speaking and one of the things I heard was Allah! Sounds like they was in a call center! Those criminals play games with all families and treating families and kids using psychology tactics torture and direct weapon energy etc… They doing a silenced terrorism with families using those technology’s! They can control people mind and people body! They can force people sleep and make anyone sick with those weapons! They 1 use religion and after I discovered they lies they said they are gang-stalkers and hackers that does work for CIA and FBI! Why does they asking people number of documents if they work for government? Why should the government pay those criminails to send porn to my autistic son? Why they using those technology against kids?! They said somethings about terrorist wash list also when I lived in Brazil sounds like the person stalking me have a lot of connections here inside of United States and another’s country’s. I believe they are trafficking humans! They are using the government and mk ultra to cover they “ business “ cyber actors using electronic harassment and mind control technology to commit crimes!

It would be difficult to overstate how much I enjoyed reading this book. As you can well imagine, the book (in my opinion) is fantastically well written and seamlessly blends useful knowledge alongside actionable techniques. However, I believe anyone reading this book will also be pleasantly surprised to find the author's heart, humor, and humility so wonderfully expressed on every page. It is (again, in my opinion) a rare delight to find an author who clearly models such a healthy balance between passion and compassion in his writing and his work. Therefore, I believe that placing a copy of the book in plain view on your desk or bookshelf will serve as a dose of daily inspiration long after you've turned the final page.

You don't even need to be interested in social engineering to benefit from (and enjoy reading) this book. In fact, about two thirds of it is devoted to building rapport, trust and influence no matter where you find yourself or what you're trying to do. The author presents the scientific principles at just the right level and then reinforces them with an abundance of anecdotes, most of which are pretty amusing. I especially liked that he includes personal stories of both successes and failures. The result is a remarkably good read that is both informative and enjoyable. If you are security professional or simply concerned about your own security, then you really should read this book. For everyone else, chapters 2-8 will likely help you improve some aspect of your social skills.

This will change how you think how as well as how the world thinks. As someone starting off in cyber security this is the stuff you need to know. Please expand and elaborate books you will write in the future! This is just scratching the surface of where the future is headed in all fields and businesses and government alike. Welcome to the new age!