An ethical introduction to social engineering, an attack technique that leverages psychology, deception, and publicly available information to breach the defenses of a human target in order to gain access to an asset. Social engineering is key to the effectiveness of any computer security professional.

Practical Social Engineering teaches you how to leverage human psychology and publicly available information to attack a target. The book includes sections on how to evade detection, spear phish, generate reports, and protect victims to ensure their well-being. You'll learn how to collect information about a target and how to exploit that information to make your attacks more effective. You'll also learn how to defend yourself or your workplace against social engineering attacks. Case studies throughout offer poignant examples such as how the author was able to piece together the details of a person's life simply by gathering details from an overheard restaurant conversation. Gray walks you through the sometimes difficult decision making process that every ethical social engineer must go through when implementing a phishing engagement including how to decide whether to do things manually or use automated tools; even how to set up your web server and build other technical tools necessary to succeed.