Social engineering
nounid
4178·updated Aug 30, 2026verified· unreviewed
A general term for attackers trying to trick people into revealing sensitive information or performing certain actions, such as downloading and executing files that appear to be benign but are actually malicious.
polysemousMWE
Attested in
NIST SP 800-171 Rev 3 - Protecting CUI in Nonfederal Systems
03.02.01.a.303.02.01.b ¶ 303.02.01.b ¶ 3
Classifications
Entity Type
Threat0%rule-basedmulti_axis_classifier_low_confidence.v1
Sensitivity
—60%llm-generatedllm:claude-haiku-4-5
Information Class
—50%llm-generatedllm:claude-haiku-4-5
Variants
- plural
- Social engineerings
- possessive
- Social engineering's
- pluralpossessive
- Social engineerings'
Framework definitions
- §1
- A euphemism for non-technical or low-technology means - such as lies, impersonation, tricks, bribes, blackmail, and threats - used to attack information systems.
- §1
- An attack based on deceiving users or administrators at the target site into revealing confidential or sensitive information
Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) IT Examination Handbook Infobase, Glossary1 senseview framework →
- §1
- A general term for trying to trick people into revealing confidential information or performing certain actions.
- §1
- An attempt to trick someone into revealing information (e.g., a password) that can be used to attack systems or networks.
- §2 · sense_2_pending_review
- A general term for attackers trying to trick people into revealing sensitive information or performing certain actions, such as downloading and executing files that appear to be benign but are actually malicious.
- §3 · sense_3_pending_review
- The process of attempting to trick someone into revealing information (e.g., a password).
- §4 · sense_4_pending_review
- An attempt to trick someone into revealing information (e.g., a password) that can be used to attack an enterprise.
- §1
- An attempt to trick someone into revealing information (e.g., a password) that can be used to attack an enterprise.
- §1
- The process of attempting to trick someone into revealing information (e.g., a password).
- §1
- An attempt to trick someone into revealing information (e.g., a password) that can be used to attack systems or networks.
- §1
- A general term for attackers trying to trick people into revealing sensitive information or performing certain actions, such as downloading and executing files that appear to be benign but are actually malicious.
- §1 · attested_usage_pack_match
- No definition is given in NIST SP 800-171r3. The term is attested in use at 2 citations in that document; a definition is pending curation.Increment 2: attested in 800-171r3 without a glossary definition.
- §1 · legacy_primary
- A general term for attackers trying to trick people into revealing sensitive information or performing certain actions, such as downloading and executing files that appear to be benign but are actually malicious.DR-088 backfill from the noun definition column
Outgoing relationships
No outgoing triples
This term is not the subject of any RDF-style relationship yet.
Incoming relationships
No incoming triples
No other term currently asserts a relationship to this one.